SIZE OF WEST VIRGINIA TOO MUCH FOR FRIARS
If you listened closely to Keno’s post game press conference – it’s obvious how much he believes WVU’s size is why they’re so good. And Bob Huggins doesn’t disagree.
The following are excerpts from last night’s post game press conference following Providence’s 14 point loss to the Mountaineers.
“The problem is that they have 4-5 inches (in height advantage) at every position,” said Friar coach Keno Davis.
“We start him (Ebanks) off on most people’s best shooter,” said WVA coach Bob Huggins of the long-armed Mountaineer. “He’s hard for little guys to score on – he has good feet and he does a good job of keeping people in front of him. He’s not just big, he’s long.”
“It’s not a fluke that they’re rated top 10,” added Davis. “They’ll pose a lot of mismatches for whoever they meet in the NCAA Tournament. Their size and their physical play takes every team, even the best teams in the league out of their offense.
“They out-physicaled us, out-sized us.”
Anyone else getting tired of Keno making excuse after excuse when PC loses? Yes, there is no doubt that most of the teams they have lost to this year (with the exception of maybe USF, Iona, and BC) are more talented than PC, but it seems that after every press conference Keno says “they have more talent than us.”
We get it Keno. But stop bringing down your own players and reminding them how bad they are and instead focus on things you can change; defense and playing like a team. I know this recent stretch has been tough, but I at least expected them to win one of them. Right now this team is playing without enough emotion, and most of that in my point of view is coming from Keno. It is his responsibility to fire up his players when they need it, and right now that is not happening. Hopefully they can prove me wrong on Tuesday against Cuse at home, but if this program wants to contend with the upper eschelon teams in the Big East, they need to start winning some of these nationally televised games to prove to some of the incoming recruits that this program is for real.
I may just be a Friar fan that needs to go to confessional, but I have no faith in this team anymore. I mean, seriously, if they have a 9 point lead with a minute to go there’s no excuse to lose against anyone. Especially a team they should have beat in USF, even though the Bulls have played pretty well recently.
Sure, it may have been the poor execution in the floor but the coach has to take responsibility for that too. There are no excuses for even going to overtime in that game, let alone losing. His excuses for the team’s poor performances don’t cut it. Even though WVU was #8, you don’t come out and say that going into the game you had reason to believe it was going to be a long night. When the team is down, the coach needs to get them pumped up and ready to go especially against a team like that, and even more importantly at home.
I don’t care if he pulls a Bill Belichick and says something like “the better team won tonight blah blah blah” but no real coach says he had a feeling his team was going to lose. Let’s get somebody new into Providence and soon. The students are already showing that they’re getting less and less interested, the alumni are going to be gone soon too.