MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The moments have played back and forth in the Tynice Martin’s mind, like a song or jingle that gets stuck in one’s head.
The West Virginia guard will not let Oklahoma’s 73-49 victory against the Mountaineers on Jan. 15 fade away into the past.
“Yeah, I’ve watched the film of that game a couple of times,” she admits.
And?
“Out of all the games, that’s the one that really gets under my skin,” Martin said. “No disrespect to Oklahoma, but there is no reason why we should have lost that game the way we did. On any given night, any team can win in the Big 12. But, to lose by 30, that’s a slap in the face, especially on our home court.”
The rematch is set for 8 p.m. Wednesday in Norman, Okla., as the Mountaineers (14-5, 4-4 Big 12) face the Sooners (11-10, 4-5).
What Martin saw on that film was Oklahoma sophomore guard Taylor Robertson go 8 of 18 from 3-point range and score 31 points against a WVU defense that was slow and unable to defend her.
“Honestly, we can’t really change what she does,” Martin said. “She’s going to shoot. She leads the country in threes. We just have to play better defense. We were slow and we didn’t communicate.”
Robertson hasn’t slowed down since that win against WVU, although the Sooners have gone 1-4 since the upset.
She’s coming off another 31-point game against Kansas on Sunday, in which she went 5 of 9 from behind the arc. Robertson has 105 3-pointers on the season and is the only Division I college player — male or female — with more than 100 threes.
What happens if she gets off another 18 threes this time against West Virginia?
“If it’s 18 open threes, that’s probably bad,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “If it’s 18 contested threes, that may not be bad. It just depends on the looks she’s getting.”
“When she doesn’t have the ball, she moves well without it,” added Martin. “It will be about us communicating more. They can come down on the fast break, and all of a sudden, you’re getting back-picked so they can get her the ball.”
That first loss to Oklahoma was the start of a four-game skid for the Mountaineers, which they ended Sunday with a 79-71 win against Iowa State.
WVU enters the game in fourth place in the Big 12 with 10 regular-season games remaining.
“I told them before the Iowa State game that this was urgent,” Carey said. “We’re running out of time. We can’t just keep talking about getting better. We’re running out of time. We have to win some games and we can still reach all of our goals that we want to meet.”
WVU recorded 21 assists in the win against Iowa State and Martin and teammate Kysre Gondrezick combined for 39 points.
It’s time for the Mountaineers to see if they can go on the road and begin to climb back up the Big 12 standings.
“They came in and embarrassed us on our home floor,” Carey said. “We need to come out and play with energy and come out and play the way we know how to play. The good thing in this league is you play everybody twice, so we have the opportunity to go out and show them that we’re better than what we were the first time.”
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