WVU Back on the Road Tuesday Night
January 26, 2015 03:01 PM | General
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(16-3)
(12-8) |
| Guard Juwan Staten scored 18 points and handed out a season-high 12 assists in West Virginia's 86-85 overtime victory over TCU Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Back in the days when West Virginia used to play in the Big East there was always a game or two coming up around the corner that you knew the Mountaineers were going to win.
The losing streaks were never too long because there were always a handful of games that were going to get the Mountaineers right in a hurry.
Sure, the Big 12 has been top-heavy lately with Kansas winning the league just about every year, but the conference also has far more depth from the middle to the bottom than the Big East ever did when West Virginia played in the league.
“This is a league with great coaching and great players,” says West Virginia coach Bob Huggins of the Big 12.
Can you ever recall the bottom team in the Big East beating the top team like TCU did against Kansas a few years ago?
Or, just last weekend when 10th-place Texas Tech knocked off ninth-ranked Iowa State in Lubbock?
Go through the remainder of West Virginia’s schedule and start looking for automatic wins. I’ll save you the trouble because there aren’t any, beginning with Tuesday night’s tooth extraction at Kansas State.
The Wildcats (12-8, 5-2) were stuck in reverse a month ago after three straight losses to Texas Southern, Georgia and Oklahoma State. Then all of a sudden they figured things out.
Since then, K-State has won five of its last six games and all three at Bramlage Coliseum, including Saturday’s 63-53 win over Oklahoma State.
The Wildcats are 10-2 at home this year with their only two losses in Manhattan coming outside of league play when they were struggling in late December.
In K-State’s seven-point home victory over Texas Tech the Wildcats got 14 points from Marcus Foster. In recent home triumphs over Baylor and Oklahoma State, Nino Williams was the man with 18 against the Bears and 20 against the Cowboys.
Williams was also the top point-getter in K-State’s six-point loss at Iowa State six days ago with a season-high 22.
Against Oklahoma State on Saturday the Wildcats jumped on the Cowboys early, led by double digits at halftime, and finished the game shooting 57.1 percent from the floor, including a sizzling 75 percent (12 of 16) in the second half.
K-State's torrid shooting has to be a major concern for a West Virginia team that continues to rank last in the conference in field goal percentage defense.
And last Saturday West Virginia (16-3, 4-2) came within a possession of losing to TCU, the Horned Frogs actually having a couple of chances to put the 17th-ranked Mountaineers away but couldn’t.
Freshmen guards Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr. pulled West Virginia out of the fire, the duo knocking down some big 3s late in the game to keep the Mountaineers close before Miles made the play of the game after Trey Zeigler’s transition basket gave TCU an 85-84 lead with two seconds left in overtime.
Miles alertly grabbed the ball after Zeigler’s basket and threw a full-court strike to Carter, who was fouled by Kyan Anderson as he was about to score the winning layup.
Carter made both free throws with 0.9 seconds left to give the Mountaineers their fourth conference win of the year. West Virginia players celebrated Saturday, but it was back to work on Sunday getting ready for Tuesday’s tough road test at Kansas State.
“You can’t get too full of yourself and you can’t get too far down on yourself,” said Huggins. “If you get too far down you get buried. If you get too full of yourself you’re going to get knocked off.”
If West Virginia wants to get a similar result against Kansas State, the Mountaineers are going to have to shoot the ball much better against the zone than they did on Saturday against TCU and they must and also generate more transition offense. The Mountaineers didn’t score a single fast-break point against the Horned Frogs and they also struggled making shots against TCU’s 2-3 zone.
In last year’s game in Bramlage WVU fell behind by 13 at halftime before eventually losing by 18 to the Wildcats. WVU shot just 32.7 percent from the floor and 26.7 percent from 3 while allowing K-State to shoot 54.9 percent overall and 42.9 percent from behind the arc.
Williams, Foster and forwards Wesley Iwundu and Thomas Gipson played key roles in that game and will be on the floor once again Tuesday night for the Wildcats.
Juwan Staten played well in last year’s game at Kansas State with 16 points and a game-best 11 rebounds. He also played well last Saturday against TCU with 18 points and a season-best 12 assists.
“He’s the engine that drives the train,” said Huggins. “We need him to play well.”
Tip off is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Dave Flemming and Miles Simon).
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s coverage begins with the pregame show at 6:30 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia as well as online through leanStream and West Virginia’s mobile application WVU GameDay.
Gold-Blue Spring Festival Fan Recap
Sunday, April 19
John Neider | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Zac Alley | April 18
Saturday, April 18
Coach Rich Rodriguez | April 18
Saturday, April 18
