MORGANTOWN — Long before West Virginia became the worst defensive team in the Big 12 or its most charitable, WVU players recognized the problems and attempted to do something about it.
Oftentimes, players-only meetings go unnoticed. They generally help clear the air between players over off-the-court issues or attempt to get certain players to improve their efforts on the court.
The Mountaineers (9-11, 1-6 Big 12), in the midst of one of their most disappointing seasons in school history, have gone that route this season.
“We’ve had a couple,” West Virginia guard Chase Harler said following the Mountaineers’ 83-66 loss on Saturday against No. 1 Tennessee.
It was a loss that brought up so many familiar deficiencies for the Mountaineers, which playing the top-ranked team in the country will sometimes do.
West Virginia turned it over 24 times and will enter Wednesday’s game at No. 24 Iowa State (15-5, 4-3) as the most turnover-prone team in the conference with 313.
Iowa State (220) has the fewest turnovers in the Big 12 this season.
The Mountaineers’ defense also gave up 47.5 percent shooting for the game and Tennessee scored
52 points in the second half — the most against WVU this season.
“It’s pretty obvious. He didn’t really have to say much,” Harler said about head coach Bob Huggins’ postgame talk. “We turned the ball over 24 times. We let them score at will and let them do whatever they wanted to on offense. I’m sure just about anyone could have walked in there and told us why we lost.”
The fact that it happens time and again, costing West Virginia what could have been wins against Texas Tech and Kansas State earlier this season, has become the source of the Mountaineers’ frustrations.
And maybe the reason for the players’ private meetings.
“I feel like everyone on the team has good intentions,” Harler continued. “Everyone wants to win. It’s not like we like what’s going on.
“I know it doesn’t look like it, because we’re bad at passing, but we’re not a selfish team at all. At times, it looks bad because we’re turning the ball over or not making the right pass. We’ve had a couple of meetings. Everyone has the right intentions. It’s just that things aren’t gelling at the moment.”
For the second time this season — the first coming after the Mountaineers’ 31-point loss against TCU — Harler reiterated that WVU players have not quit on the season.
“The main thing is a want-to,” Harler said. “We know what the issues are. It’s a matter of if we want to change them. All of us, including myself, have to take responsibility for our actions and try to do as much as we can moving forward to getting better as a team.”
Following the game, Harler said Huggins told the team that he would not give up on them this season.
“We don’t sustain things,” Huggins said following the game. “We’ve played pretty well in spurts, but they’ve just been spurts.
“Then we start turning it over left and right, which we’re very accomplished at and then they get on a run. You can’t let a team that good get on a run like that. When you have a chance to stop the bleeding, we didn’t do it. Not because of anything they did, it was just because of our bad play.”
For better or for worse, Harler said the Mountaineers’ focus was to simply improve as much as possible.
“In order for us to improve and get better the rest of the season, we have to be mentally tough enough to continue to run offense,” Harler said. “I think we started to get a little too comfortable in thinking that we were up 19-6 with 15 minutes left and that it was in the bag. We should have just continued to run offense.”
