Facing West Virginia Wesleyan's men's basketball team offers a distinctly un-Mountain East Conference experience for opponents. The University of Charleston saw that Thursday in its 50-34 win over the Bobcats. West Virginia State will see that at 4 p.m. today when it hosts WVWC in the Walker Convention Center.
The Golden Eagles and Yellow Jackets face different tasks in connection with Wesleyan's deliberate on-court pace. WVSU must step out of the usual fast-paced Mountain East landscape and prepare for the grind Wesleyan will offer. UC must hop back into the regular speed of the MEC when it visits Glenville State at 4 p.m.
Fast pace and piles of points are the calling cards of the Mountain East. Nine of the MEC's 12 teams sit in the top third of Division II in scoring, all averaging at least 80.5 points per game.
The Bobcats, with star post player and Division II leading rebounder Tanner McGrew at the forefront, like to take things slow, so shot opportunities don't come as often. Wesleyan averages 52.8 shot attempts per game. Nine MEC teams average at least 60 attempts, and West Liberty leads the league with 72.3 per game.
So any opportunities an opponent gets at good shots must count, WVSU coach Bryan Poore said.
"If you take quick shots and don't make them, it really plays into their hands," Poore said. "Normally in an MEC game, you can get away with 12 to 14 turnovers, because the other team plays fast and is going to turn it over a little bit, too. But with Wesleyan, if you turn it over more than eight times, that's a big deal, because they're not going to turn it over more than three or four times and now they're going to get five or six extra possessions on you, and that's huge."
The first time the Yellow Jackets (6-16, 4-13 MEC) played the Bobcats, WVSU stumbled to its lowest scoring output of the season in a 72-51 loss. West Virginia State averages 63.6 shot attempts this season, but got just 52 versus Wesleyan (13-10, 8-9) on Jan. 18.
The Golden Eagles (13-10, 10-7), on the other hand, are returning to the usual Mountain East sprint against the Pioneers. Yet they're returning with the knowledge that their defense, tied at the MEC's top with Wesleyan at 68.3 points allowed per game, is at its stingiest.
The 34 points UC allowed to the Bobcats on Thursday were the fewest ever allowed in an MEC game. Golden Eagles coach Dwaine Osborne said later it was the fewest allowed by any team he's directed in his career, which includes stints at Glenville State, the University of Texas-Permian Basin and Charleston. It was the fourth time an Osborne-led team has held an opponent below 40 points.
The Pioneers (9-14, 6-11) haven't scored fewer than 55 points in any game this season and enter today's game putting up 81.2 per game. Glenville beat West Virginia State 83-70 on Thursday and got a career-high 38 points from Brett Morris. The first time GSC and UC faced each other this year, Charleston walked away with an 88-66 win.
Yet Charleston tries not to focus on facing different playing styles. Osborne said he puts more emphasis on his own team and its internal goals.
"It's really not quite as much about the schematics of things in terms of who we're playing and what their style is," he said. "It's more about what we're trying to do defensively, how we're trying to apply the main concepts and principles we try to implement and doing it in an effective way."
Poore admits that facing someone like Glenville, which fits the MEC mold, and then switching to Wesleyan, which breaks it, can be difficult, especially with just one day to prepare against a style the Yellow Jackets don't see often in conference play.
"It's a challenge," he said. "It's not really suited to our style and what our guys like to do. They want to play fast and, obviously, Wesleyan is going to score in the last six or eight seconds of the shot clock. It's a little bit of whose will is going to take over the game."