MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Derek Culver’s 18 points and 15 rebounds were two very good reasons as to why No. 11 West Virginia found itself in a ball game against No. 1 Gonzaga on Wednesday in the Jimmy V Classic.
In the forward’s own words, though, Culver shouldered the blame as to why the Mountaineers came up on the short end of an 87-82 score in Indianapolis.
“To be honest, Gonzaga is a really good team, but we had them today. We most definitely had them today,” the Mountaineers forward began. “I’m not going to lie, I’ll put the blame on myself. I lost this game for us, because there were a couple of times I had the ball and blind-side help came and they knocked the ball from out of my hands. I felt like I lost this game for my teammates.”
It takes a big man to admit that, and at 6-foot-10 and 260 pounds, Culver is every bit a big man.
He, of course, did not lose this game for the Mountaineers (3-1).
The plays Culver are speaking of came with the game on the line.
He had a rebound slip through his hands with 4:46 remaining that fell right to Gonzaga’s Joel Ayayi, who laid it in to give the Bulldogs (3-0) a 75-71 lead.
About 30 seconds later, Ayayi sneaked up behind Culver and stole another rebound away from him and that led to Corey Kispert’s 3-pointer for a 78-71 advantage.
Were they big plays? Absolutely.
“The turning point of the game was probably when we rebounded it twice and they knocked the ball out of our hands and maintained possession and scored,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “Instead of putting the ball away like we work on. We just made some careless errors and it came back to bite us.”
Those moments become huge only because of the score and time remaining.
If they happened with 14 minutes left in the first half, sure, you’d still be frustrated, but it would be doubtful Culver would throw the blame on himself if that was the situation.
Truth is, those two plays were just two moments among a field of passing errors, defensive miscues and one flat out terrible offensive foul call on Taz Sherman that took away what would have been a crucial basket when WVU trailed by four with 4:35 remaining.
There was more, by the way, like Gonzaga taking advantage of lazy WVU defenders either in transition or on back-cuts to the rim.
Oscar Tshiebwe’s fifth foul came because he simply didn’t run down the court fast enough and Drew Timme made him pay for it.
Jordan McCabe tried to force a pass inside that got knocked away and led to some more Gonzaga fast-break points.
These are the kinds of things you probably won’t see the Mountaineers do come March, but you saw them Wednesday, and that’s exactly how a near-great moment gets turned into a missed opportunity.
Is that all on Culver? In his mind, yes, but in reality, it’s not even close to being all Culver’s fault.
“I think we all should shoulder the blame,” Huggins said. “I think every guy who got back cut should shoulder the blame. I think every guy that didn’t block out and let a guy go in or every guy who went up and missed two free throws; I think everybody ought to shoulder the blame.
“I think our coaching staff should shoulder the blame, because we tried to guard ball screens and our guys aren’t capable of guarding ball screens that way. That’s all of us. I think everybody had input on that.”
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