Mountaineers Saying All The Right Things After Snapping Losing Streak
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MORGANTOWN - Mostly, sports press conferences are filled with cliches and platitudes, players or coaches saying what they think you want them to say or saying what they think their boss wants them to say.
Every so often an Andy Van Slyke or Pete Rose or Reggie Jackson or Jim Leyland comes along who has you listening intently and with whom an interview becomes a conversation, but mostly you wait until you transcribe the voice recorder's contents before you realize that there was something to bite on.
This is especially true after the team you are covering has won. The best stories and interviews always have been in losing locker rooms and the best interviewees are often mad at something.
That is why I almost jumped out of my seat on Saturday night after West Virginia had ended its three-game losing streak and beat No. 25 Texas for its first Big 12 win of the season.
The press conference with point guard Kerr Kriisa and forward Pat Suemnick was filled with as many gems as King Charles has in his British crown.
First there was Kriisa, a newcomer to the program after playing a nationally-ranked Arizona team expressing his joy in the victory over Texas, not just because it set off a locker room celebration in which water was tossed on everyone, perhaps to wash away the bad karma this team has had all season.
"We needed that win for sure. We needed a couple before that, but we needed that one for sure. For ourselves … and for the people of West Virginia I'm pretty proud to get that for them."
This native of Croatia seemed to have picked up what being a West Virginia Mountaineer is all about rather quickly. It is - as coach Josh Eilert has been stressing with his defense - an "us against them" attitude.
And the 'us' really isn't about just the team, as you would think. The fan base in WVU over the years at times has cared about and appreciated what it means to be a West Virginian as much and maybe even a bit more than the players.
This is so typical of Kriisa, who came with a reputation of being a pass-first point guard and has certainly shown that to be true, but who does it in a sport where players seem to think they get extra points as much glitz as they can put on every move.
Don't lay it up if you dunk it and if you can dunk it, do it as if you are in the slam dunk contest.
So, every so often you see a dunk sailing off into the seats, knowing that even if it had been made correctly it would count the same number of points as a layup.
That is why it shouldn't have been surprising when Kriisa, who is quite capable of making ESPN Top 10 passes night after night, made another comment out of that win in the press conference.
Someone asked after how they had managed to get the ball to Suemnick so often even though Texas' defense seemed intent in getting the ball out of his hands early in each possession.
Kriisa could have tossed a behind-the-back answer out to the waiting "mediawrites" about how slick he handled it, but instead just came back with a two-handed chest pass of an answer that cut right to what he's about.
"I don't mind who makes the pass," he said. "I'm just trying to win the ball game. I never play for my stats. It's hard to play as a team when you have guys playing for stats. You are trying to win so whatever I see out there, I'm just trying to make the best read I can make.
"If I'm a point guard, I just try to find the open guy," he said. "Today they played that way and Pat happened to be more open and Pat did an amazing job of putting the ball on the rim."
And finally, there was Suemnick, taking a moment to offer up what has been behind his surge when finally getting a chance. It came down to an area that has been tiptoed around in the media, perhaps out of deference to giving Eilert a full chance to make a name for himself.
But for the players who remained from last year, there is a certain reference to Bob Huggins and Suemnick paid homage to his former coach.
"I came here under Huggs, that toughness, that physicality. Like I said before the season, that's something I hope to try to inspire our guys with and to keep that defensive mentality up," he said.
He got the word across Saturday and now must take it on the road with him to Oklahoma on Wednesday night to face a Sooner team that was ranked as high as No. 9 but who now owns two straight tough road losses and can't want to get home.