Why has Casey Mitchell seen his minutes get cut?

Casey Mitchell was one of the bigger surprises early in the college basketball season.

The 2009 JuCo player of the year, Mitchell struggled to find minutes during West Virginia's 2009-2010 run to the Final Four. The reason? He had issues with doing what Bob Huggins says, and if you have issues with doing what Bob Huggins says, you aren't going to play.

That's a fact.

Well, it seemed as if Mitchell had turned a corner during the Mountaineers trip to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off tournament. He went for 31 points in a win over Vanderbilt and followed that up with 27 in a close loss to Minnesota in the title game. He would drop 25 and 27, respectively, in the Eer's next two games, before his hot streak finally snapped with a 5-15 performance in a loss to Miami.


All told, we were seven games into the season and Mitchell had, only twice, played fewer that 29 minutes. He only twice had scored less that 18 points. They were the same two games, and they also happened to be the first two games of the season.

Which makes it interesting that in West Virginia's last two games -- the only two games they have played since losing to Miami -- Mitchell has played just 35 minutes total and scored all of eight points.

That's right.

A guys that was averaging 21.8 ppg in his first seven games for West Virginia averaged 17.5 mpg and just 4.0 ppg over his last two. And no, he wasn't in foul trouble.

What happened? Why hasn't Mitchell been seeing the same number of minutes?

My guess? He's had more issues doing what Bob Huggins says. Take the second half against Duquesne on Sunday night as an example. Mitchell played one second. Literally. One second. How does one go about getting pulled after just one second?

He fouled on what was a three-point play on an inbound play, and not just an inbound play, but "one we worked on for three days," Huggins said.

"At this point in the season, I'm looking for guys that won't screw the game up," Huggins said. "We've got a bunch of them that screw it up bad."

Mitchell wasn't the only one to feel Huggins' wrath. Deniz Kilicli played just one possession in the second half. He forced, and missed, a shot on a play that was drawn up for him and was yanked.

The line was drawn in the sand last Tuesday. After an ugly first half in which the Mountaineers only led Robert Morris 32-31, Huggins called a timeout and made a line change -- the five starters out, the second team in -- just 24 seconds into the half. Why? Truck Bryant took the ball out under his own basket, and the other four players took off down the court.

"I get tired of watching guys not play the right way," Huggins said after the Robert Morris game. "I've got great respect for the game and the way it's supposed to be played."

There it is, clear as day.

You want to play, you better do what Bob Huggins says.