MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It was, as expected, a quiet plane ride back to Morgantown from Manhattan, Kan., when West Virginia’s senior leaders decided to make their voices heard.
Just hours before, WVU head coach Bob Huggins had been critical of Jermaine Haley, Chase Harler and Logan Routt for not helping their younger teammates grasp the urgency that comes when the stakes keep trending up for a young team.
That’s where the Mountaineers were prior to their 84-68 loss against the Wildcats last Saturday.
Talks of Big 12 titles, national rankings and a possible No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament were closing in. All West Virginia had to do was not lose games it was supposed to win.
Kansas State’s upset took care of that. West Virginia’s seniors seemingly took it from there.
“Jermaine, Chase and Logan are the guys we look to,” WVU sophomore guard Jordan McCabe said. “Not only for their experience here at West Virginia, but Jermaine, I feel like he’s been playing in college for 12 years now.
“It’s really important to have a guy like him grab all of us — returners and young guys — and say, ‘This can happen in the Big 12. They’re all talented teams in this league.’ ”
To Haley’s credit, he didn’t see a WVU team that struggled to make shots or run its offense.
He saw a team that failed to show toughness and failed to guard.
“We had some metal lapses (against Kansas State) and we didn’t execute the game plan,” he said. “Everyone was disappointed. Even in losing, we should have put up a better fight.”
In bouncing back on Monday, with a 97-59 victory against Texas, the 14th-ranked Mountaineers (15-3, 4-2 Big 12) took the fight to the Longhorns.
It’s the nature of scrappiness the Mountaineers have that is the key to their success.
No matter how far WVU climbs up the national rankings, it is not a team blessed with superior talent that is going to run opponents out of the gym.
That much Bob Huggins made clear to his players heading into the Texas game.
“It all starts on defense with us. A lot of teams like to say that, but Huggs has his way of getting you to do it,” McCabe said. “Huggs said it perfect before the game. He said, “We’re really crappy at being a finesse team or a soft team, but we’re really good at being a hard-playing ball club.’ When we do that, like tonight, we’re a tough team to beat and I think we can go win a national championship.”
As far as that defense, West Virginia forced 18 turnovers and held the Longhorns to 35.8% shooting from the field, while also grabbing a season-high 53 rebounds.
“We were quicker to the ball. I think we set the tone with our defense,” Huggins said. “The ball went in a little bit for us, but we set the tone with our defense, which is normally what we do. We didn’t do it (at Kansas State). They just kicked our butts out there.”
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