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Mountaineers, Longhorns to Hook Up Tonight
January 19, 2016 05:55 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The Texas basketball team Shaka Smart is bringing into the WVU Coliseum on Wednesday night might not be the one we’ve become familiar with through the years, but that doesn’t mean the Longhorns are lacking talent.
In fact, the more West Virginia coach Bob Huggins watches them on tape the more he likes what he sees.
“They’re very talented,” Huggins said before Tuesday’s practice. “When you can beat (North) Carolina and some of the people they have beaten in non league …”
Before taking over for Rick Barnes at Texas this season, Smart’s Virginia Commonwealth teams were known for their full-court pressure defense and frenetic style of play.
Smart won 163 games in six seasons at VCU, taking the Rams to the Final Four in 2011 and trips to the NCAA tournament in five of the six seasons he coached there by speeding people up and capitalizing on their mistakes.
The Texas players Smart inherited from Barnes didn’t have to play that way because the Longhorns usually had better personnel than the teams they were facing.
“It’s a change of philosophy and it’s a change in the way they play, so obviously it’s going to take them a little bit of time - and the injuries have hurt them - but he’s done a great job. They’re playing pretty well right now,” Huggins added.
Indeed, Texas has won back-to-back conference games against Iowa State and Oklahoma State and brings an 11-6 overall record into the Coliseum for Wednesday night’s game against the Mountaineers.
And it looks like the Longhorns are finally adjusting to the loss of 6-foot-9-inch space eater Cameron Ridley, who broke his foot during practice on December 27 and is out indefinitely.
Ridley’s backup, Prince Ibeh, has stepped in to give Texas amble rebounding and defense, and he teams with 6-foot-10 senior forward Connor Lammert to give the Longhorns more than enough size in the paint.
Neither player is putting up great offensive numbers so far this year, but Lammert has scored some in the past against West Virginia and has demonstrated the ability to knock down shots from the perimeter.
“(Ibeh) is not as explosive as Cam but he plays just like him. He’s 280 pounds. It’s not like they don’t have people inside,” Huggins said. “They certainly miss Ridley, but they’re fortunate that they can have people come in to, in some semblance, do what he did.”
The Longhorn player who gets everyone’s attention is 6-foot-3-inch junior Isaiah Taylor, who Huggins believes might be the best point guard in the Big 12 this year.
Taylor is averaging 17.2 points and 4.8 assists per game and seemingly fits well with what Smart wants to do offensively and defensively. Taylor averaged 23 points, four rebounds and five assists per games in wins over Iowa State and Oklahoma State last week to earn Big 12 player of the week honors.
He is averaging 22.2 points and shooting 52.8 percent over his last seven games heading into Wednesday night.
“I like everything about him,” Huggins said. “I think he understands when people are coming open and he gets the ball to them. He’s the best guy in our league at pushing the ball. He’s got the best mid-range game in our league. He’s just really good and he’s good defensively. He hasn’t shot a bunch of threes but he’s capable.”
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins previews Wednesday night's Texas game.
If you put a smaller player on him he will take the ball into the lane and score close to the basket and if you put a bigger player on him he has an answer for that too, according to Huggins.
“He shoots it before the size gets there,” Huggins explained. “He does a great job of stopping and shooting that floater.”
“We’re going to try not to turn him loose. If we can keep from turning him loose, we can keep from turning just about anybody loose,” Huggins said.
The Longhorns have another player West Virginia fans have become very familiar with through the years - Javan Felix.
The senior guard scored 19 points in an 11-point victory in the Coliseum two years ago and seemingly always plays well against the Mountaineers.
“For whatever reason he’s always made shots against us from his freshman year on. I don’t think he’s ever had a bad game against us,” Huggins said.
West Virginia (15-2, 4-1) is looking to bounce back from Saturday’s two-point defeat at Oklahoma. The Mountaineers tied the game with 26 seconds left on a pair of Jonathan Holton free throws, but Khadeem Lattin’s tip-in with 2.8 seconds left gave the second-ranked Sooners a 70-68 victory.
West Virginia overcame a seven-point second half deficit, but the Mountaineers left some points at the free throw line where they made just 13 of 22. Meanwhile, Oklahoma made 27 of 32 – a 14-point difference.
Jaysean Paige came off the bench to score a game-high 18 points against the Sooners, boosting his season average to 13.7 points per game. Paige is also averaging a team-best 19.6 points in Big 12 play while shooting an impressive 50 percent from the floor.
Junior forward Devin Williams shows averages of 14.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, but foul trouble limited him to just five points and six rebounds in 15 minutes of action out in Norman.
The Mountaineers are averaging more than 26 fouls per game in Big 12 play so far this year. West Virginia’s 133 personal fouls in those five games translate into 33.2 free throw attempts per game for its conference opponents.
That’s an increase of almost four more free throw attempts per game than what its opponents shot during non-conference play.
The Longhorns aren’t a great free throw shooting team (63.4 percent), but Taylor and Felix are making better than 77 percent from the line for the season. Keeping those two guys off the foul line on Wednesday night will be important for West Virginia.
A large student turnout is expected for Wednesday’s game, which tips at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPNU (Clay Matvick and Tim Welsh). The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s coverage begins at 6 p.m. leading into regular game coverage at 6:30 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and also online via leanStream and the mobile app TuneIn.
There are tickets still remaining and those can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800 WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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