November 1, 2018,  Basketball  No comments

Hillybilly Ball Taking Over West Virginia

By Michael Morgan

The Marshall Thundering Herd men’s basketball head coach Dan D’Antoni began wearing his iconic t-shirt and blazer attire when official practice started last week with a certain message on the shirt: Hillbilly Ball.

“I call our style of play ‘hillbilly ball.’ When I grew up, you either made the shot or it was going to run down the hill,” D’Antoni said on Jan. 23 of last year describing the Herd’s style of play.

The Herd coach is entering his fifth season for Marshall and the run-and-gun style that he and his brother Mike D’Antoni (head coach of the Houston Rockets) used in their NBA careers is more successful than ever for the Thundering Herd.

Marshall scored 83.8 points per game last season, which led the conference and was tenth in all of Division I. Leading the conference in scoring helped the Herd win Conference USA and make its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 31 years. The Herd, a 13 seed, upset the  fifth seeded Wichita State 81-75 in the first round.

D’Antoni referenced in March, the metrics that showed teams in college basketball averaged .7 points for each contested shot in the paint, versus 1.3 points for each contested corner jump shot to support his team’s style of play.

The Herd return the only pair of 20+ points per game scoring teammates in the nation with Jon Elmore and C.J. Burks to attempt and lead the Herd to a second consecutive Conference USA championship.

“I think we are better game-in and game-out,” D’Antoni said during the C-USA Tip-Off streamed on ESPN3.com last Monday. “Everybody came back and we only lost one (Ajdin Penava). Everybody back is better, but that doesn’t mean you have the same success. Our conference is tough,” D’Antoni said.

The Herd did lose Penava, who left for the NBA, but they have a few new faces in Iran Bennett, Luke Thomas, and others that look to replace last season’s nation-leading shot-blocker.

D’Antoni discussed the Hillbilly Ball t-shirts being for sale in Huntington and understood that they are a, “hot item.”

The Herd went 25-11 last season and received just one vote in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 for the upcoming season, and was predicted to finish second behind the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in the 2018-2019 season.

D’Antoni was not worried by the preseason polls. He said, “But, game to game I think we’ll be better. Game to game I think we’ll be better if we get lucky and hit the right shot at the right time. Then maybe we can have the same type of success.”

The Herd coach expects senior guards Elmore and Burks to lead the team in contention against Western Kentucky for the conference title.

The Thundering Herd won their first exhibition game of the season on Sunday against Glenville State. Marshall plays West Virginia Wesleyan on Thursday in their last preseason play before opening up the season on the road against Eastern Kentucky University on Nov. 7.