Welcome to The Deep Post, a column on the rumblings of the week past and ahead. It’s basketball season so we’ll switch from post routes to the post position! This week’s offering dives into officiating and accountability.
AccountabilityÂ
Officials make the wrong calls all of the time. But they’re not the reason teams lose games.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes dominated the headlines early in the week because of a penalty that cost the Chiefs a touchdown, and ultimately a win against the Buffalo Bills.
Mahomes and his head coach Andy Reid blasted officials after wide receiver Kadarius Toney was flagged for being offsides, insisting the call shouldn’t have been made. Here’s the issue – it was 100 percent the right call. Toney was clearly offsides and just because it resulted in a cool play doesn’t mean it should stand. One of the first things they teach players in youth leagues is how to line up correctly.
So what does this have to do with basketball in Southern West Virginia?
Following Greenbrier East’s loss to Princeton in a girls basketball game Wednesday, East head coach and W.Va. Governor Jim Justice pointed to the officiating as the reason for the 53-46 loss. Here’s the background information.
Princeton took 30 free throws to East’s 6. Nineteen of those free throw attempts came in the second half. I went back and checked my game log from last year’s game in Princeton between the two teams. Princeton shot 27 free throws to East’s 5. That’s 57-11 over two games.
Clearly that’s a lopsided, suspect total and Justice’s frustrations are merited.
East won that game last year but couldn’t this year.
Here’s the truth – officiating isn’t the sole reason any team ever loses a game and truthfully it was probably third on the list of reasons East lost, as lopsided as the totals were.
East shot 29 percent and turned the ball over 19 times. If you remove any context from any basketball game ever and tell a coach their team will produce numbers like that they’ll probably assume they’re going to lose.
We’ve reached the point where we look for excuses or factors to blame, and again, East had a gripe on the foul end, but they didn’t do a good job of controlling the things they could such as shooting better and taking care of the ball. The Chiefs didn’t do a good job of controlling what they could – lining up correctly.
Far be it from me to wave the flag for officiating, but the great teams control what they can and take accountability. When you play the blame game you often wrongly attribute failures and shortcomings instead of addressing the underlying problems.
For the Chiefs it was another week where an execution mistake at wide receiver cost them a loss. Not an officiating one.
The juggernaut rolls onÂ
December as a whole is important for Wyoming East. I usually don’t like to look too much into results until February because by that time most teams are who they are or they’re hitting their stride.
But the wins keep getting more and more impressive for the reigning state champions. The latest one that moved the Lady Warriors to 5-0 was a 57-34 thrashing at Chapmanville.
The AP and Coaches polls have ranked the Tigers too low in my opinion. They’re one of the darkhorse teams I can see playing on that final Saturday of the season but yet they’re outside the Top 5 in both polls. All of this to say I have a lot of respect for the talent they’ve accumulated.
Wyoming East didn’t care either way.
The Lady Warriors led by 13 at halftime and never saw their lead fall below double digits. Mind you this is a Chapmanville team that’s lost the last three regional championships to East, including last year in Chapmanville. They’re motivated and familiar with East but East went into their house again and dictated the pace. East forced turnover after turnover, sped the game up, worked the ball around for open shots and broke down the Chapmanville defense on drives. They had no way to matchup with East all-staters Maddie Clark and Cadee Blackburn and if you can’t cut those heads off, you’re sunk.
The win was also a warning shot to the rest of Class AA. The mental battle is as difficult as the physical one and knowing you were blown out on your home court and trailed for majority of the game is hard to overcome. Just ask Eagles and Cowboys fans how they feel about potentially facing the 49ers again in the NFL playoffs.
When you’ve reached the level East has, you’re circled on every team’s schedule. East Fairmont beat reigning Class AAA state champion North Marion this week and before their head coach finished his interview with Metro News he mentioned the Bees’ game this week against Wyoming East.
East is only halfway through its December gauntlet. Up next the Lady Warriors will travel to Mingo Central, a place this group has never won. Afterwards they’ll return home for a matchup against that previously noted East Fairmont team, one that has garnered title buzz in its class after that 18-point win at North Marion. The end of the month will see Wyoming East finish up in Greenbrier East’s holiday tournament where it will likely see another really talented team.
The scary thing is East has played four of its five games on the road.
If it can make it through this stretch unscathed, there could be some buzz about an undefeated season. The schedule, while difficult, isn’t as challenging on the backend mostly because Chapmanville, Mingo and Summers all have to come to New Richmond.
It’s early but the program has had a Mary Ostrowski winner, a Gatorade Player of the Year winner and a trio of state championship but never an undefeated team. It could be on the radar if East maintains this level of play.
The Depth RaceÂ
This will be a theme throughout the season but it’s noticeable how the Class AA contenders are trying to build depth. I had a chance to cover the Summers County girls and Bluefield boys this past week, both squads with title aspirations.
Summers rotated nine players in throughout its three-point win over Mercer Christian. Head coach Rick Blevins was transparent in stating that his intention was to build depth. Last year Summers could rarely go past six in its rotation when it counted.
Bluefield was in a similar boat and ran out of juice in the fourth quarter of the state semifinal last year. So far the Beavers have mixed in seven or eight players through two games.
The Wyoming East girls have done the same, going eight deep. It’s easy to say you want to build depth but staying the course throughout the season is the real challenge. Should all three teams do so they stand to reap the benefits in March.
Player of the Week
Football is a more static sport which allows for consistency in announcing the Player of the Week. Basketball is different with game and practice schedules varying from day to day, so moving forward the Player the Week winners will be unveiled weekly in The Deep Post.
The Week 1 winners are Cadee Blackburn from Wyoming East and Kynna Britton from Sissonville.
Both were unanimous winners amongst the sports writers. When necessary I’ll also use this space to explain my vote and why I choose who I choose each week.
Alexandria Anderson (Hurricane) and Haley Justice (PikeView) won the fan polls and will advance to the Community Choice poll at the end of the year.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94