No. 7 West Virginia vs. No. 3 Kansas will be a battle of contrasting styles

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — What was once a match-up of size and brawn has developed into two contrasting styles a year later.

No. 7 West Virginia (7-1, 1-0 Big 12) will walk into Allen Fieldhouse at 9 p.m. Tuesday still with the size-does-matter attitude and armed with powerful forwards Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe, who are the top two offensive rebounders in the Big 12.

“We’ve got to get Oscar going a little bit more, but Derek has been the monster that we know he is,” WVU point guard Deuce McBride said. “I think we have to rely on our inside, because that will help us to make open shots a lot easier. If guys go down to double them, we’re going to get open shots. We’ve just got to hit them.”

No. 3 Kansas (7-1, 1-0) had the same kind of makeup last season, with 7-footer Udoka Azubuike, who went on to be named the league’s Player of the Year.

Azubuike is now a rookie with the Utah Jazz and Kansas has become a team more about style than brute force.

“They’re playing smaller,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “It’s different than when they had those two bigs. They spread you a out a little bit more and try to dribble-penetrate.”

Kansas still has 6-10 junior David McCormack, a former McDonald’s All-American, but the Jayhawks are much more 3-point oriented.

Kansas’ 67 threes leads the Big 12 and guard Ochai Agbaji is 21 of 44 (47%) from behind the arc. Christian Braun adds 41% (16 of 39) from 3-point range.

“I think our guys, Derek in particular, has done a good job of playing out on the perimeter when need be,” Huggins said. “They’ve got to guard us, too. We’re going to have a bit of a size advantage for the first time in about 20 years.”

If WVU’s challenge is using bigger guys to guard smaller players, Kansas coach Bill Self said the Jayhawks face the challenge of trying to match up against the Mountaineers’ group of power forwards.

“West Virginia will throw the deepest group of bigs at us in our league,” Self said. “They whipped on us pretty good here last year. The first half, they totally dominated. We’ll have to be good across the board and our guards will have to rebound.”

As part of the interesting defensive match-ups, Kansas guard Marcus Garrett was the national Defensive Player of the Year last season.

At 6-foot-5, Garrett spent some time last season guarding the 6-foot-10 Culver and that could happen again Tuesday.

“Derek is a better player this year. He’s certainly putting up better numbers,” Self said. “I don’t think it’s a great match-up for us, just from a standing-height standpoint, but Marcus did have a great second against them in Morgantown last year. He guarded everybody. He guarded Derek some, but he was on everybody. I don’t look for him to be the guy on Derek, but at times he could be.”

The Mountaineers are 0-8 on the road against Kansas and would take a major step toward challenging for the Big 12 title with a victory.

“West Virginia has never won at Kansas and that’s one thing I would like to give (Huggins) and to this state,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said. “It’s not even about me and how I play there. I feel like we’re going to be prepared for that game and we’ll be more focused.”

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