By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — It’s no coincidence that the No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks and No. 3-seed West Virginia Mountaineers are mirror images. Stephen F. Austin’s Brad Underwood is a Bob Huggins disciple, and the third-year coach doesn’t hesitate to praise Huggins.
“He’s the single best communicator with people and with players that I’ve ever seen,” Underwood said of his counterpart in the first round of the East Region. “Just had an unbelievable way of affecting young men in a positive way and can get on him and get the best out of them on the basketball court and then just so caring and so involved in their everyday life. It’s a reason he’s been successful and as a hall of fame coach approaching 800 wins. His players love him to death, and it was a great learning experience for me.”
Underwood spent just one year as an assistant to Huggins at Kansas State. Their teams meet Friday ranked one and two in the nation in turnovers forced.
“West Virginia, they’re unbelievable in the full court, and it’s not the way they press” Underwood explained. “It’s the effort with which they do it with, and it’s unrelenting for 40 minutes. They play so hard. A lot of people press, but it doesn’t work.”
West Virginia forces 18.15 mishandles a game. The Mountaineers are second only to S.F. Austin with 18.63.
“I like to think that we pick up full court some,” Underwood continued. “We mix up our defenses in the full court, but ours is more half-court oriented, taking passing lanes away, denial.
“It’s a culmination of we don’t want anybody to have any one possession easy, whether it’s a baseline out, whether it’s a sideout. There’s total pressure on the offense the entire time. And over the course of 40 minutes, we’ve been able to force turnovers because of the little things — loose balls, taking charges, diving on the floor.”
“Brad really spreads that 1-2-2 out, and they get a lot of ball pressure and try to play passing lanes,” Huggins said when asked the Lumberjacks defense. “Brad does a great job with the pinch post stuff, which I’ve never really ran.”
The difference might be in turnover margin where the Lumberjacks get some separation with a +6.2 to 4.1 margin.
The Lumberjacks eliminated then No. 5 seed VCU and its havoc defense in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. S.F. Austin withstood the pressure applied by the team leading the nation that season in turnovers forced.
“We handle pressure pretty well,” Trey Pinkney said. “If we go back to the first year that we made it to the NCAA Tournament, and we played VCU, we did a really good job handling their pressure. So we’re kind of going to take the same steps in this game. We have a couple guys who were there as well. So we prepare for it the same way, and we’re going to handle the pressure to the best of our abilities.”
Thomas Walkup scores 17.5 a game with 4.5 assists and 6.8 rebounds for a team which averages 80.7 points (21st in the country). Demetrius Floyd adds 13.8 and Ty Charles 9.7 for a team with eight players averaging double digits. Clide Geffrard comes off the bench and adds 13.4.
“We have a ton of guys who are high IQ guys, can pass it, dribble it,” Walkup said. “So we’re not only relying on Trey to bring the ball up every time. We can help take some of the pressure off of him, and I think that will go a long way as far as valuing the basketball.”
Devin Williams scores 13.3 a game for the Mountaineers. Jaysean Paige nets 13.9 off the bench.
West Virginia is making its 27th appearance in the NCAA Tournament and seventh in the last nine years. WVU reached the Sweet 16 last year.
“We kind of got a taste of it last year of how critical it can be, how crucial it could be when other teams have to face us,” Williams said of West Virginia’s defense. “We kind of made some history last year. So it just gave a little bit more to look forward to. Just everybody’s being enthusiastic about it, so it’s just making it easier for everybody to go out there and just cause mayhem.”
Stephen F. Austin and West Virginia tip off at 7:10 p.m.
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