WVU hopes home court makes a difference

Same two teams, each game a runaway, one team winning one, the other team winning the other.

Isn’t it nice to play at home?

There is this thing in basketball called the home court advantage and it is very real; real enough that WVU is counting on it to turn the tables on Texas when the Longhorns invade the Coliseum at 7 p.m. Saturday.

WVU played at Texas earlier this season and lost, 77-50.

It is hard to imagine that they can turn that around, but as noted didn’t they beat a pretty good Oklahoma team by 21 at home and lose to them by 19 on the road, a 40-point turnaround?

How does this happen?

Why is it that teams win 70% or more of their home games consistently?

What creates home court advantage?

“It’s probably routine,” WVU’s veteran coach Bob Huggins said. “I think that has a lot to do with it.”

He should have some idea. He is the 12th winningest coach of all time with 761 victories. At the Coliseum, his teams have won 88 games and lost 28, a .759 winning percentage.

All-time, WVU has a .772 winning percentage in the Coliseum and over the past 11 seasons they are 129-34, .791.

When you are at home you follow your everyday routine. Classes, practice … home in your own bed.

There’s no travel, no sleeping in a hotel, no shoot around in a strange gym.

“It’s not the same,” Huggins said. “On game day on the road, you’re not active all day. Your mind’s not active all day.”

But it is more than just that, for it takes the emotion out of playing at home and it doesn’t make any sense to take the emotion of a sporting event which may or may not be decided by emotion.

Ask sophomore center Devin Williams to define home court advantage and he doesn’t hesitate with his answer.

“The energy, man, the spirit,” he said. “Everyone’s in tune. When there’s a state like this, with us as the main focus, you know how WVU basketball is looked upon in the state. It’s a tradition and everyone is supporting us.”

Juwan Staten takes it further.

“It’s where you practice at. You are comfortable with the rim, the floor, the atmosphere. You got 16,000 people cheering for you and not the other team,” he said.

Huggins points to routine. Williams to energy. Staten to both, and is smart enough to realize that the reverse is true when you are the visiting team.

“On the road you got those same factors working against you. You are in a gym you play in only one time a year. No one in the gym is cheering for you. It gets loud, but none of it is for you,” Staten said.

That is why they push so hard for an active, alive student section in the Coliseum, the Maniacs as they called.

In truth, if WVU were to win a national championship, it would be wise of them to give out a symbolic championship ring to a member of the Maniacs, something to realize that what they do may not equal Staten going coast to coast with a magnificent spin move to win a home game against Kansas.

Does that happen on the road?

Not a chance.

Interestingly, WVU has been a good road team. They have lost three games at home, three on the road.

Of course, two of the losses at home were heart wrenching, by a point to LSU and two to Iowa State.

That, of course, makes you wonder why, with all home teams have going for them, they drop close games at home. Like, if you run into a team that’s a lot better than you at home or a team that just shoots lights out or if you are shorthanded, OK, you lose at home.

But the killers in the schedule are the ones you should win at home and lose, for WVU would be 23-4 and close to a Top 10 team if they had won those two home games … maybe even looking at a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

That’s why this Texas game comes up so big on the schedule for them. A second loss, at home, to an unranked Texas team would really hurt.