No, I'm not what you would call a stats guy, but numbers do interest me.

And I have somehow become fascinated with a statistic that has come out of West Virginia's last couple of basketball games.

It's the Mountaineers' assist totals, or, more precisely, the team's ratio of assists to field goals. It has been nearly perfect in games against DePaul and Syracuse.

In a game against the Blue Demons last weekend, WVU made 28 field goals and 25 of those were assisted. Then, on Monday night at the Carrier Dome, it was 17 field goals and 14 assists.

For those counting at home, that's 37 assists on 45 baskets the past two games. If you stretch back into the final minutes of West Virginia's previous game, against Pitt, you will find the numbers are 42 of 52.

Folks, that's a healthy percentage. Consider that going into the game against DePaul, West Virginia had 348 assists and 566 field goals. That means 61.5 percent of the team's field goals in the first 23 games were assisted.

In the last two games, that number has skyrocketed to 82.2 percent.

OK, so how does that compare nationally? Maybe the Mountaineers were just lousy at assists and this is just a little bump.

Uh, no. The fact is, the average percentage of assists on field goals for teams in Division I basketball this year is roughly 54 percent. A percentage of 70 is simply astronomical. Only one team in the country - you win a prize if you guessed Sam Houston State - is at that number. The really, really, really good teams in this category average 61 to 68 percent. West Virginia, through 25 games now, is at 63 percent. That's 18th in the country.

But 82.2 percent? OK, in one game, sure. Maybe even in two games against like opponents. But in back-to-back games against a DePaul team that played perhaps two possessions of zone defense and then against all-zone, all-the-time Syracuse?

Eighty-two percent? Really?

Just as a point of reference, consider a handful of teams that West Virginia has played this season. Duquesne, for instance, leads the country in assists, so it's no surprise that Ron Everhart's team is third in the country in percentage of assists to field goals (67.9).

Remember Oakland, which WVU played way back in the opening game? Well, the Golden Grizzlies now have more field goals (787) than any team in the country, but Oakland's percentage of assists on those baskets is pretty mundane - 55.2 percent.

Notre Dame, which comes to the Coliseum Saturday, is fourth in the country in assist percentage at 67.7 percent. Louisville and Pitt are also in the top 10.

Or consider No. 1 Kansas, which leads the country in field goal percentage. The Jayhawks have a good percentage, 60.6, but that's only 43rd in the country. Georgetown, the only other team that is shooting 50 percent or better from the field for the season, is roughly the same at 60.9 percent, or 40th.

I suppose that what we can take from all of this is that, for the most part, teams with a better-than-average percentage of assists on field goals are usually pretty good teams. There are a few exceptions, but generally speaking the teams that share the ball and make the extra pass are usually doing something right and are rewarded for that.

West Virginia is no exception.

Here, though, is what actually intrigues me about WVU's 82.2 percentage over the last two games: It's not necessarily a good thing.

Sure, it's good when Joe Mazzulla has seven assists against Syracuse or when Mazzulla, Truck Bryant and Cam Thoroughman combine for 17 in just one game against DePaul. But consider for a moment why it is that even the best teams generally have assists on only six out of every 10 baskets.

Two reasons come to mind:

1. The best teams have players who are able to create their own shots. Coaches call it scoring off the dribble. When it happens there is generally no assist.

2. Second shots. Think about it. If even the best players make four or five shots out of every 10 they attempt, then perhaps half the potential assists in every game don't materialize because of missed shots. But the best teams recover a lot of those points with offensive rebounds and immediate scores. There are no assists on those, no matter how good the initial pass.

Now, throw in backcourt steals that result in layups without a pass and loose balls picked up in scrambles near the basket and the result is a decrease in the assist percentage. That's a good thing because teams are finding all sorts of ways to score.

But West Virginia hasn't been doing that, and it artificially increases the assist percentage. Yes, it's good that of the baskets the Mountaineers are getting they are doing so through teamwork, but it's a negative that they aren't getting many others.

That the Mountaineers aren't scoring off the dribble is no great surprise. Coach Bob Huggins has lamented all season that he has no one capable of doing that. How often have you seen a WVU player take the ball and beat a defender? Perhaps the best at doing so is Mazzulla, although in the unconventional manner of his sometimes awkward drives to the basket. But even he hasn't done that lately.

The second shots are the real problem these days, though. Against Syracuse, the Mountaineers had but one put-back basket, by John Flowers to start the second half. They had none against Seton Hall and two against Pitt. Granted, there were other occasions when they scored second-chance points (by either resetting the offense or on fouls at the basket). But as offensively challenged as this team is, it has to get more.

In the meantime, of course, there's nothing wrong with sharing the ball and piling up those assists. But if that's the only option, well, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.