Mazzulla’s grittiness not apparent in boxscore
NEW YORK – Joe Mazzulla sat at the very end of West Virginia’s bench for the entire first half of West Virginia’s game with St. John’s Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Even lowly sportswriters had a better vantage point, given that the end of the row of seats reserved for the visiting players is actually beyond the baseline.
Shoot, the guy could have wandered off and mingled with the crowd and no one would have known he was gone. Bob Huggins certainly wouldn’t have paid any attention. Walk-on Cam Payne and trainer Randy Meador had a better chance of catching the West Virginia coach’s eye.
Mazzulla was down there in no-man’s land because the day before he’d injured his foot so badly that Huggins was convinced it was broken. It wasn’t, but as late as Saturday morning Huggins admitted that he’d all but crossed off Mazzulla and was prepared to play without him. With a Monday night showdown against No. 2 Villanova at the Coliseum looming, if Huggins could have gone all day without needing Mazzulla against a rather average St. John’s team, well, all the better.
Well, it didn’t work out that way and for a couple of reasons. For starters, Truck Bryant, West Virginia’s starting point guard, wasn’t sharp. That’s the politically correct way of putting it. In truth, playing in front of family and friends back in New York, Bryant might have been trying a bit too hard to put on a show and it wasn’t working. He missed five of his six shots and the one he made was simply a lucky bounce when he threw the ball at the rim in an effort to get a call and a couple of free throws.
Read More – The Charleston Gazette
