Alexander "The Great"

I watched all 6 games at Verizon Center in Washington D.C. this weekend and left very impressed with West Virginia's Joe Alexander. The 6'8" Junior was the best individual player in the region. His ability to rise and use his length to shoot over defenders like an NBA player is fun to watch. He's a very soft-spoken kid, but plays with an edge on the court. Hard to believe a guy who scored 32 points in back-to-back games against UConn and Pittsburgh in the regular season, couldn't even get on the court at Hargrave Military Academy.

Alexander credits his improvment from a pedestrian 10 points/game as a sophomore to maybe the best player in the Big East by the end of his junior season to one man - Bob Huggins. He says "Huggs" forced him to learn how to play in the post and threatened long treadmill sessions if he didn't rebound (and those threats weren't empty...just ask Joe).

I'm assuming Derrick Brown will get the Alexander assignment on Thursday to keep Josh Duncan out of foul trouble. Brown is active, athletic and consistently executes Miller's defensive mantra of "high hands" on jump shooters. Alexander will probably play all 40 minutes, unless he's in foul trouble. So, Josh Duncan might get a few minutes to battle with WVU's big man.

As good as Alexander is, he did only make 11-of-34 field goal attempts in the first two rounds. Plus, Duke and Arizona aren't exactly dynamic defensive teams.
Xavier will need to play very well to move on to the Elite 8 for the second time in school history.

- Joe D.