Farrakhan, Suemnick emerging as dependable players
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MORGANTOWN -- Despite having struggled through the first half of its final Big 12 game ever in Norman, Oklahoma, West Virginia's underdog Mountaineers were in a favorable position as they headed to the locker room at halftime on Wednesday night.
They had kept the Sooners within the reach of a 3-point shot for most of the half and went into the half down just 29-25. If they could find a spark to ignite them from what mostly was a lackluster, uninspired performance through the first 20 minutes, perhaps they could pull it off.
But it was Oklahoma who came out for the second half as if it had been refreshed with extra-strength Gatorade and within two minutes the lead swelled to nine points and the Sooners were looking as though they might run away with it.
That was when Noah Farrakhan took matters onto his own shoulders to light the fire. Under the offensive basket, he stole the ball from Oklahoma and went up for a layup. It was the kind of play that can begin to change a game but, at the end of it, he limped for a step or two and then went down on the court.
His right knee was injured and in the minds of the Mountaineers, the thoughts changed from a "comeback" to "come back, Noah Farrakhan."
He went to the bench and the lead grew to 11, then 13, then 14.
By that time Farrakhan's knee had responded and he was put back in, again with only one thought on his mind and that was to light the torch of a late comeback.
Down 14, he elevated again, this time to heights only the big men usually reach, slammed the ball home with one of those dunks that even gets the opposition off the bench to see it. In the process, he was fouled.
Was the comeback on?
He certainly must have thought so, for he was overly exuberant in his celebration of the moment. Instead of his playing doing the talking, he let his mouth do it and was hit with a technical foul.
That gave Oklahoma the two points from the dunk back and it went off on a mini-spurt and it was over.
Farrakhan, though, had something to prove. He closed out the game scoring six of WVU's last nine points.
If there was a player of the game on the losing side, it was he, along with the ever improving and impressing Pat Suemnick.
The box score would show that Farrakhan had led WVU with 14 points in 17 minutes, hitting 6 of 11 shots with a rebound, an assist, a block and a steal, and that Suemnick would contribute 9 points while making the only two shots he took while leading WVU with 7 of their 19 rebounds and grabbing off the only 3 offensive rebounds the team would grab in 40 minutes of play.
This is kind of the way it is for WVU, Suemnick and Farrakhan emerging as the most dependable of the players as RaeQuan Battle, Kerr Kriisa and Quinn Slazinski have up and down games.
They are the ones taking advantage of the opportunity before them, and considering that Suemnick opened the season getting very little playing time until Jesse Edwards went down with a broken wrist and Farrakhan had been penciled in to redshirt since he was a double transfer without a waiver you can call it a surprise.
It was something Coach Josh Eilert approached in his media session heading into the Oklahoma game, when asked about how the two players' confidence has to be growing with each time out.
"Noah has always had a tremendous amount of confidence," Eilert said. "That's probably the biggest hurdle for Pat. With limited playing time sometimes you can't get on a roll, get into that groove. We forced our hand to give Pat as much playing time as possible. It was up to him to do whatever he did with it."
And what he did over the past five games has shown his versatility and ability to do things even on off-shooting nights. Over the past five games, Farrakhan has shot only 36.2% and 18.9 from 3, but he has 3.4 rebounds a game from his guard spot and 11.6 points a game. Three of those five games he's been in double figures.
"Noah didn't have the best shooting game (1 of 8 against Texas) but he contributes in so many ways," Eilert said. "He led us in rebounding with seven the other night. I told the whole team scoring is not the only way to help the team. You can help in so many ways and affect the game whether you are making shots or not."
As for Suemnick, he's taken over the leadership of the team with a rugged approach to the game as he tried to fill in Edwards, a role that doesn't fit him yet which he has attacked head on.
Of those five games he has made 75% of his shots while averaging 10.4 points a game and has averaged 5.4 rebounds a game while pulling down 17 offensive rebounds, 3.4 per game on a team that is just not equipped to grab off offensive rebounds.
"He showed a lot of confidence the last two or three games and he really built on it. It started with the Ohio State game and it has kept snowballing for him," Eilert said. "We're going in the right direction with Noah and Pat."