Wednesday, December 22
Morgantown, W.Va.
6:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Youngstown State
Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Hungry Mountaineers Winning Games With Their Defense
December 21, 2021 04:46 PM | Men's Basketball
| Tale of the Tape |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Points Per Game | 74.4 | 69.4 |
| Points Against | 65.6 | 60.5 |
| Field Goal Percentage | 45.5 | 45.0 |
| Field Goal Percentage Against | 41.1 | 42.9 |
| 3-PT Field Goal Percentage | 33.5 | 30.4 |
| 3-PT Field Goal Percentage Against | 35.5 | 30.0 |
| Free Throw Percentage | 75.4 | 61.9 |
| Rebounding Margin | +3.4 | -0.6 |
| Turnovers Per Game | 10.3 | 12.1 |
| Turnovers Per Game Against | 12.2 | 18.3 |
| Steals Per Game | 5.7 | 8.7 |
| Blocks Per Game | 2.5 | 5.3 |
Have you looked at the stats lately?
The Mountaineers are barely shooting 30% from 3-point range and 60% from the free throw line. They still have a rebounding deficit, although it has been reduced to almost even, and they turn the ball over 12 times per game – many times in live-ball situations that lead to breakaway opportunities.
They have only two reliable scorers right now, Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil, which is why they have exceeded 70 points in a game just five times so far this year.
So, how is this team 10-1?
Is it the schedule?
"You can do a lot of things if you set the schedule up the right way," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins pointed out earlier today.
Fair point, coach, but six of the 11 teams your guys have faced so far this year have winning records. UAB and UConn are 9-3, Clemson and Marquette are 8-4, Oakland is 7-3 and Kent State is almost on the winning side of the ledger at 5-5.
Bellarmine has gotten hot to win four out of its last five and is now 6-7, and Pitt, with a 4-7 record, did recently upset St. John's and almost knocked off Virginia in Charlottesville earlier this month.
So, the schedule might not be Villanova good right now, but it's certainly not Delaware State bad either.
So, again, how is this team 10-1?
"We compete," Huggins said. "When we were down eight in Birmingham there were a whole lot of people who thought it was over, but we competed. We haven't been as talented as the upper echelon of our league since I got here.
"We weren't overly talented in the Big East and we haven't been overly talented in the Big 12, but we've played with a lot of heart," he continued. "We've had good players, don't get me wrong, but we haven't had the first pick in the draft like some other people have. We haven't had three pros on the same team, but we're going to line up and compete."
This is really evident on the one stat line that is actually really good for the Mountaineers. It's at the bottom of the last column to the far right on the stat sheet – opponents' points per game average.
West Virginia is only permitting 60.5 points per game and has held its opponents to less than 60 points eight out of 11 times so far this season. Last year's team did it only four times while giving up an average of 72 points per game. Only two other times since Huggins has been at West Virginia has that happened - in 2019 when it gave up 77.4 points per game and lost 21 times, and in 2014 when it allowed 73.4 points per game and lost 16 times.
Going back to his Cincinnati days, the only other Huggins team to surrender that many points was his 1995 Bearcat squad that allowed 71.3 points per game.
His current guys are working on a streak of five straight games of holding their opponents to less than 60 points per game. The last time that happened was in 2010 during the run through the Big East and the NCAA tournaments on the way to the Final Four.
So, it's clear this team full of transfers, junior college guys and players with something to prove are out to prove something. They don't always play perfectly, and sometimes they make things harder than they should, but when the clock winds down to winning time these guys dig deep and perform.
They did it in the Clemson win in Charleston, South Carolina. They did it against Eastern Kentucky, Connecticut and Kent State, and they did it again last Saturday in Birmingham.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin says he wants volunteers not hostages on his football team. Huggins, chuckling when asked if that statement applies to his basketball team, said he isn't totally sure what that means but he did say he does have guys who are hungry to prove themselves.
"I think we have guys who are clamoring for a chance," he said. "When you play at whatever school from a lower Division I level and you go home, nobody is excited about it. I think we have guys who want to prove that they can play at the highest level of college basketball, which is what we do. That's a great challenge for them, and they're excited about it."
Guys such as junior college transfer Kedrian Johnson, who was once a top scorer at that level. Here at West Virginia, he is being asked to play a different role and he might turn out to be the Mountaineers' best on-the-ball defender since Jevon Carter.
"It's the will to want to win," he says.
That was never more evident than at winning time at UAB. Johnson was one of the guys who stepped up to the foul line and made his free throws down the stretch to win the game.
He was also the guy who made Jordan Walker's afternoon miserable, just as he made R.J. Cole's night miserable. Johnson was clearly one of the guys paying attention when Huggins told the media that his team's defense "sucked" earlier this year.
"First, I'll say he was saying that to motivate us to actually want to be better at it and play defense," Johnson said. "But now we're more together. At the beginning of the season, we were everywhere. We had a lot of new guys so we really didn't know a lot. Some people were new to the system, so it's been a learning process for everybody."
There are many different ways to play good defense, as Huggins explained today. You can play Pack Line and make teams shoot over top of you. You can pressure and try and speed teams up and make them play faster than they want.
You can take away the other teams' best scorers and force the complementary players to beat you by playing man or different versions of zone, not to mention full-court pressure, three-quarter-court pressure, half-court pressure, or half-court trapping.
Are you going to trap ball screens?
Are you going to hard-hedge ball screens?
Are you going to go under?
Are you going to push up?
"There are a lot of variations, and it just depends on your personnel," Huggins explained.
Last year, West Virginia's players struggled to stay between their man and the basket, and when guys got past them it usually resulted in a layup or a dunk.
This year, when they do get past Johnson, Taz Sherman, Sean McNeil, Malik Curry or freshmen Kobe Johnson and Seth Wilson, they've got to deal with Dimon Carrigan or Pauly Paulicap, not to mention Gabe Osabuohien sitting down ready to take a charge.
That's something West Virginia really hasn't had since Sagaba Konate was patrolling the paint.
"I rely on them to help me out," Keddy Johnson admitted.
It's clear West Virginia's calling card right now is stopping the other team. It's what they do best, and it fits the type of players Huggins has in his program this year. Maybe next year the personnel will dictate something else.For now, sophomore forward Jalen Bridges admits there is beauty to behold in this style of play. And, Mountaineer fans used to watching Huggins' Press Virginia teams, are starting to come around. Some have even taken to social media calling Huggins' current squad "Stress Virginia!"
The "stress" has double meaning – stress on the other team, of course, and stress on Mountaineer fans' personal nervous system and heart rate for having to watch it!
"You will see it on Wednesday night when we start locking up," Bridges predicted. "There is five seconds left on the shot clock and the fans start clapping and all, and it's really just fun. Even when you are not out there just sitting on the bench it gets you going.
"When your team is out there working their tails off locking people down, it's fun to play that way," Bridges added.
"People who know college basketball appreciate it. The people we play against admire and appreciate it, without question," Huggins concluded.
West Virginia has one final game remaining against 7-3 Youngstown State on Wednesday night at the Coliseum before the Christmas break. A special 6 p.m. tipoff has been designated for the game, which will be televised on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Tickets remain on sale and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
After Christmas, the Mountaineers will have a couple of days off before beginning Big 12 play at No. 16 Texas on New Year's Day.
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