West Virginia has big task awaiting

Defensive- minded squad on a roll, but Gonzaga looms

BUFFALO Tarik Phillip didn’t wait to hear the whole question before providing his enthusiastic answer.

The last time West Virginia came to Buffalo for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament …

“Yeah, yeah, come on, Final Four,” he said with a smile as wide as West Virginia. “You know it. You were about to say it. I say it for you, though.”

Yes, when the Mountaineers reached the Final Four in 2010, their first two wins came in Buffalo. Phillip, a senior guard, figures that’s a good omen as West Virginia prepares to meet the West Region’s No. 1 seed, Gonzaga, on Thursday in San Jose.

“We’re running right now, we’re running,” Phillip said. “And we’re going to make a run.”

West Virginia runs on its fullcourt pressure defense. The Mountaineers have the best turnover margin in major- college basketball. They’ve forced 724 turnovers, while committing 442, for a ratio of 7.8 — and nobody else in the country has a ratio better than 4.9.

Plus, pressure from other teams doesn’t seem to bother West Virginia.

“It shouldn’t,” senior forward Nathan Adrian said. “We go against pressure every day ( in practice). So I think we’d be pretty good at it.”

Notre Dame averages 9.5 turnovers per game ( only Michigan, with 9.2, averages fewer). But West Virginia hurried the Irish into 10 turnovers in the first half of Saturday’s second- round win.

Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins says his press is about much more than turnovers: “It’s just the constant having to work hard to get the ball up the floor, work hard to get open, kind of takes people’s legs.”

At one point in the Mountaineers’ first- round win against Bucknell, Adrian dove to the floor to intercept a pass and then delivered a pass of his own, from his back, to teammate Lamont West for a breakaway dunk. That’s West Virginia, turning turnovers into points — and floor burns.

“We’re tough to handle,” Adrian said. “No one likes when somebody is up in your face the whole game.”

For all the talk about the Mountaineers defense, the offense averages 82.1 points per game, 18th in the country. “There’s days, honestly, I don’t know how we get to 82,” Huggins said. “But somehow we do.”

Gonzaga handles the ball well, averaging 11.3 turnovers per game, 40th in the nation. The Bulldogs’ strength is their size: They are sixth in the nation in total rebounds.

“You’ve got to block out a little higher,” Huggins said on a Monday teleconference, “do a better job of not getting under the basket, where they can reach over you.”

Reporters on the teleconference asked Huggins for comparisons to his 2010 Final Four team. He said that team was more skilled and versatile while this one “can guard more ways” and rebounds well.

Point guard Jevon Carter re- sists that sort of comparison. He said he was unaware that 2010’ s Final Four run began with a pair of wins in Buffalo.

“No, man,” he said, “I just take them one game at a time.”

But he was more than happy to talk about West Virginia’s ferocious defense.

“We try to make teams uncomfortable,” Carter said. “Speed them up, try to get them to play out of character and try to make them tired.”

Can the Mountaineers do that to anybody?

“We’re going to try,” he said.

TIMOTHY T. LUDWIG, USA TODAY SPORTS Elijah Macon and West Virginia will pit their elite defense and underrated offense against Gonzaga on Thursday.