BeileinBall complicated, yet successful

RALEIGH, N.C. - Don't try to find one reason for West Virginia'sstunning start to the basketball season.

There isn't one.

It's more complicated than that, kind of like an opponent tryingto solve the Mountaineers' 1-3-1, area-trapping zone defense.

"We didn't invent it," WVU Coach John Beilein said Sunday.

No, the Mountaineers just play it like they did, as two rankedteams have sorely learned in a five-day span.

The Mountaineers won a regular-season game in an Atlantic CoastConference arena for the first time in 16 years on Sunday,confounding a star-short, 17th-ranked North Carolina State 82-69.

That came on the heels of an impressive Morgantown nudging of No.20 George Washington.

WVU is 10-0.

Only three teams in the Mountaineers' storied hoop history havebeen perfect longer into a season, none since Jerry West's sophomoreyear - a 14-0 opening to 1957-58.

However, the number that really explains the neighborhood in whichBeileinBall is playing in WVU annals is 47.

That's not the shooting percentage.

It's higher than that, .499 to be exact, as Big East Conferenceplay begins Wednesday night at Villanova.

It's been 47 years since West Virginia won back-to-back, regular-season games over ranked teams.

The Mountaineers did it in the 1998 NCAA Tournament (Temple andCincinnati, in Boise, Idaho), but in regular-season play, you have togo back to West's sophomore season again, Dec. 20-21, 1957.

Those Mountaineers upset No. 5 Kentucky, on its home floor, andtop-ranked North Carolina to win the UKIT. Hey, in their previousgame, those 'Eers downed 19th-ranked Richmond, too.

However, that WVU team was No. 8 before that trio of wins - andNo. 1 afterward. Forty-seven years later, the Mountaineers may sneakinto the bottom of the polls today.

Although the Wolfpack (8-3) played Sunday without sidelined All-America candidate Julius Hodge and his 19.2 points per game, hissprained ankle shouldn't diminish the WVU accomplishment.

There are some who watch the 'Pack regularly who say Coach HerbSendek's team isn't that much different without Hodge, whoseselfishness can subtract the team concept.

WVU understands that. It wins with an offensive efficiency that'sas uncommon as its 1-3-1 zone.

The Mountaineers, really, have no go-to guy. Opponents aren'tquite sure whom to stop. In winning Sunday, WVU had five double-figure scorers in a boxscore that was quite typical, except for the10-rebound effort by right-place, right-time Mike Gansey.

Offensively, here's how WVU remains one of the nation's sevenunbeaten Division I teams:

The Mountaineers have played 30 games since Beilein booted shot-seeking Drew Schifino from the team 50 weeks ago. In those 30 games,WVU has had 98 individual double-figure scoring performances - butonly five of 20 points or more (and only two this season).

West Virginia has at least nine 3-pointers in nine of its 10 wins.Factor in the lack of turnovers, and the WVU offensive efficiency isbetter than average. Against the Wolfpack, the Mountaineers, despitelosing the glass game again, had 70 points on field goals in 65possessions.

Defensively, the 1-3-1 has Gansey on top, where he plays long, inaddition to his uncanny nose for the ball. His emergence in a defensehe'd never much seen, much less played, until WVU began its Europeanexhibition tour in August, has sent the long-armed Tyrone Sally to awing.

What that means, Sally said, is that "6-foot-2 or 6-3 guards aretrying to make their (offense entry) pass over or around us. Weextend (the point of the defense) out to 20, 25 feet, and they're offon one side, trying to do what they want to do out on top."

Opponents, like State, are left to attack from strange angles.None of the last eight WVU opponents had shot better than the .393percentage the Wolfpack managed. Beilein's teachings in the 1-3-1includes WVU defending against six-man units in practice.

What else the 10-0 start means, besides the Mountaineers joinDuke, Illinois, Kansas, Boston College, Texas A&M and Wichita Stateas unbeatens, is that WVU has some quality wins to ride the NCAAbubble in two months.

Wins here and at LSU, and the triumph over GW give theMountaineers some margin for error in the Big East - althoughBeilein's team gets three of its first four league games, and four ofsix, at WVU Coliseum.

"We're all right," said West Virginia junior Johannes Herber ofthe 10-0 start.

"As individuals, we're nothing special. As a team, we're justsolid. We're mature. We understand what we're doing."

That is not to say the Mountaineers quite understand what they'vedone.

After all, 47 years ago, even Beilein was only 4.