John Flowers back in Action and Other WVUPros Basketball Notes

John Flowers

John Flowers last played for Denain Voltaire (France) on Dec. 7th. He was held out of the next four games and subsequent two week winter break with a paperwork issue. He led the team in scoring before that time at 20.6 points per game. 

  Flowers returned to Denain's lineup on Saturday night against Boulogne and picked up where he left off by leading the team in scoring with 19 points to go along with six rebounds and two assists. Denain lost the game, however, 104-87.

Kevin Jones

  In the last five games, including last night's game against the Lakers, Kevin Jones has seen an increase in his playing time with the Cavs averaging nearly fifteen minutes per game. Against the Lakers, Jones played 16 minutes, scoring six points and added two rebounds and two steals. Devin Ebanks did not play. 

Alex Ruoff

  Ruoff knocked down two out of three three-point attempts for the Canton Charge against the Iowa Energy to finish with eight points, four assists and two rebounds. The Charge took down the Energy 93-84. They have now won seven of their last eight games.

Tyrone Sally

  Sally continued his strong play for the Furstenfeld Panthers on Saturday night scoring 13 points on 5 of 7 shooting with four rebounds and four assists. As the Panthers lost to Gmunden 112-84. Sally averages nearly 12 points per game this season. 

Tyler Urban added to WVU Coaching Staff as a Graduate Assistant

 One year after playing his last game as a Mountaineer, Tyler Urban will return to WVU and join Dana Holgorsen's coaching staff as an offensive graduate assistant and for quality control. Profootball Scoop originally reported the move, and confirmed to us by Vernon Bailey at WVSports.com 

  

  Urban went undrafted in last year's NFL Draft, but was quickly signed by the Tampa Bay Bucs. The team quietly let him go. He then signed with the New England Patriots before getting cut at the end of last August.

  Urban is the fourth addition to the Mountaineer coaching staff in the past week, including the return of Lonnie Galloway and Tony Gibson along with the addition of Brian Mitchell, who was the former defensive coordinator at East Carolina. 

WVUPros in the NFL Regular Season Recap

The NFL regular season ended this past Sunday night.  Adam Pacman Jones, Bruce Irvin, Don Barclay and Pat McAfee will represent WVU in the NFL Playoffs.

  Over the next few weeks, we will have recaps of all of the Mountaineers who were in or around the NFL this season and where they stand as far as free-agency is concerned. We will have interviews with several of them. Here in encapsulated form are the stats for the different WVUPros in the NFL.

Bruce Irvin

  Irvin led the NFL in sacks among rookies with eight. He also finished 29^th in the NFL in that category. He finished with 17 tackles (10 solo) and had one forced fumble.

Adam Pacman Jones

  Jones had a bit of a revival in Cincinnati this past season. He finished with 40 tackles (33 solo), had one forced fumble and one sack. That was his most tackles since 2006 when he was with the Titans. He had 26 punt returns for 301 yards and a TD. That was good enough to place him 12^th in the NFL in that category. He also returned three kickoffs for 64 yards.

Darius Reynaud

  Reynaud found career resurgence with the Tennessee Titans. He was the Titans primary kick returner and also found success returning punts. He returned 53 kicks for 1,240 yards (2^nd in the NFL) and one 105-yard TD. He finished 5^th in the NFL in punt return yards with 410. He returned two punts for touchdowns during Week 17 for the Titans, resulting in him being named as the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week.

  He also pitched in five receptions for 35 yards and 16 rushes for 33.

Will Johnson

  Johnson came out of nowhere and started all 16 games for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He led all NFL rookie fullbacks with 35 receptions for 137 yards and one TD. He had two rushes for seven yards.

Ryan Mundy

  Mundy recorded a career-high in tackles with 39 (31 solo). He had one fumble recovery and one 33-yard reception on a fake punt against the Titans. He played in all sixteen games.

Corey McIntyre

  The eighth year player was the Bills special teams’ captain this past season where he recorded six tackles. He had one catch for nine yards as a fullback.

Ellis Lankster

  Lankster had a career-high 39 tackles with the Jets this past season. He had two interceptions, one sack, broke up six passes and had one fumble recovery in 15 games played. He did not play in the last game of the season with a concussion suffered the week before.

J.T. Thomas

  Thomas played in all sixteen games for the Bears this past season after being on Injured Reserve the year before. He was a special teams’ specialist, recording five tackles and forcing two fumbles.

Pat McAfee

  McAfee was fourth in the NFL in punting with a 48.2 average on 73 punts during the season. He had a career high of punts landing inside the 20-yard line with 26. He also had four tackles.

Keith Tandy

  Tandy played in nine games during his rookie season for Tampa Bay. He played mostly on special teams, recording three tackles.

Najee Goode

  Goode was active for three games this season for Tampa Bay. Bucs head coach, Greg Schiano, said during a press conference toward the end of the season that although Goode and Tandy did not play much during their rookie seasons, they made great progress during practices.

Don Barclay

  Barclay started the last four games of the regular season for the Packers at RT. The Packers loved to run the ball to his side of the line. He was suspect in pass-blocking, but the team is very high on him for the future.

Selvish Capers

  Capers spent most of the season with the New York Giants on their practice squad. During the second half of the season, he was involved in different roster shuffles when injuries occurred, alternately getting cut and signed to the active roster. But, he finished the season on the active roster for three games.

Owen Schmitt

  Before Schmitt’s release by the Raiders, he had two carries for one yard. He also had one tackle.

Special Announcement Concerning WVUPros

  This blog has a new home: www.wvupros.com and has undergone a major redesign.
  We dropped the "blogspot" from the URL, and created a webpage that will enable us to bring you more, streamlined content than was possible here.
  I hope you will click the link above and visit our new page, and as always...

Let's Go Mountaineers!!!

Bob Huggins Speaks: Quotes Following the Morehead St. Game

  This is the second installment of Bob Huggins speaks. This is a new feature that I'm going to do after every basketball game where I choose selected quotes from Bob Huggins. Huggins is not afraid to speak his mind with the media, and sometimes his comments are so honest that the make you laugh.
  Last night, WVU defeated Morehead St. 48-83 at the Civic Center in Charleston, WV where the game was essentially over 8 minutes into the 1st half. The Mountaineers game out hot, starting the game with a 20-4 run. Kevin Jones had 23 points, Truck Bryant had 14, and Deniz Kilicli and Gary Browne both pitched in with 10 points apiece. The Mountaineers led by as many as 37 in the 2nd half.

"This is a good game for us," Truck Bryant said after the game. "We've been getting better every day. It's just a great feeling to see that we're starting to gel as a team, and everybody is starting to know what their roles are."

  The defense is improving, forcing 23 Morehead St. turnovers. Huggins used the game to figure out where and when to play some of his new 8 freshmen. He talked about that and here is what else he had to say about the game:

“Our rotations were better. They recognized what we were trying to do and we were much better against pressure,” Huggins said. "We have practiced it. We probably went with just doing the dummy stuff to get them to understand where to go to where it is becoming second nature to them. We break it all down and then we put it all back together when we go five on five. I think we spent 25-30 minutes on it today."