MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — We welcome you to the next-to-last nonconference game of the season, where No. 9 West Virginia hosts Northeastern for the first time since 2003, back when WVU assistant Ron Everhart was the Huskies’ head coach and future NBA guard J.J. Barea scored 19 points and added 10 assists in a 91-84 upset.
It would be difficult to foresee a similar turn of events today, even though the Huskies (1-4) have had their moments against good competition. They hung in with Syracuse at the Carrier Dome and lost by six. They held a 13-point halftime lead on the road at Georgia last week, but were held to just 13 points in the second half.
“They’ve got a bunch of people who can make shots, so your ability to help off the ball is going to be important,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “They spread you because they can make shots.”
What isn’t exactly hard to see at the moment is the Mountaineers (7-2) seem to be riding the same type of wave as last season, which is to say they get off to a solid start and build some momentum, but last week’s 14-point loss at Kansas really sticks out as a sort of red flag as to how far WVU still has to go in order to compete for a Big 12 title.
Looking strictly at the numbers, we find that WVU’s overall defense has taken a turn for the worse compared to last season, and individually, the Mountaineers aren’t getting better production at a couple of key positions.
We begin individually, where forwards Oscar Tshiebwe and Emmitt Matthews Jr. have presented some curious cases so far. Going into the season, you’d expect to see their production increase, but it hasn’t exactly worked out as expected to this point. Matthews’ shooting percentages are down across the board, except at the free-throw line, where he’s shooting just under 90%. His points-per-game average is up only a point and his rebounding average is basically the same as last season. He’s had one game (vs. Georgetown) where he scored in double figures and hasn’t had more than six rebounds in any game this season.
Tshiebwe, who put his name into the NBA Draft last season before deciding to come back to school, has seen most of his numbers decrease from a freshman season that saw him named to the all-Big 12 freshman team. His minutes are down. His scoring is off by three points per game from last season and he’s grabbing two less rebounds per game. He shot 55% from the field last season and is down to 50% now. He shot 71% from the foul line last season and is at 61% percent this season.
“He’s not running the way he ran before,” Huggins said of Tshiebwe. “Actually, he and I were just talking. I think the play everybody would remember is the ball is going out of bounds (against Texas) and Oscar runs the length of the floor, picks the ball up and dunks it before anybody else has really crossed half court. I told Oscar, ‘You kind of screwed yourself, because now everyone saw you can do it.’ Once people see you do it, they expect you to do it all the time. He hasn’t come close to doing that. He understands that. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Oscar right now, to be honest with you.”
Defensively, WVU is allowing about seven more points a game, but is scoring only about four more. WVU led the Big 12 in holding down 3-pointers last season, as opponents shot just 28.8% from behind the arc. From the field, WVU was second in the Big 12 last season, allowing just 39.1% shooting. A year later, with mostly the same guys, opponents are shooting 30.1% from 3-point range and 42.4% from the field. That may not seem like a drastic change, but it’s certainly not an improvement.
“As a team, it’s certainly something we have to work on,” Matthews said. “We’ve been trying out different things to see what best suits us. We’ve got to work on rotating out of ball screens. That’s the main thing. This year, we’ve tried two or three things with ball screens. From the time I’ve been here, we’re tried just about everything.”
So, we’ll see if anything changes today. Northeastern shoots the ball pretty well from 3-point range (35.7% as a team), but also averages just under 17 turnovers per game. The Huskies were also been out-rebounded by 11 against Georgia, so that’s an area where WVU will have to take advantage of, too.
Here’s what you need to know:
TV: ESPN+ (Online subscription needed) for the 2 p.m. tip-off. BETTING LINE: WVU is favored by 17.5 points.
WHAT DOES BOB HUGGINS HAVE TO SAY?
Huggins spoke highly of Northeastern sophomore point guard Tyson Walker, who is from Westbury, N.Y. It sounds like the Huskies do some different things to try and get him a run at the basket.
“Their point guard is terrific,” Huggins said. “I think everything starts and stops with him. They do a great job in their ball-screen series, which is good for us to be able to spend time and work on. He’s really good with the ball-screen stuff. He splits it and he drags it out. He can stop behind it and shoot it. He does a lot of really good things.”
The coach was also asked about his team’s trajectory, in terms of showing improvement over last season.
“We haven’t really put people away the way we need to put people away. The way we should be capable of putting people away,” he said. “I would hope they’ve learned from last year, because it’s basically the same guys. I would hope they’ve learned, because that wasn’t always a pleasant experience (last season).”
PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS
WEST VIRGINIA (7-2)
F–Derek Culver, 6-10, jr., 13.7 ppg, 10.6 rpg
F–Oscar Tshiebwe, 6-9, soph., 8.1 ppg, 7.0 rpg
F–Emmitt Matthews Jr., 6-7, jr., 7.2 ppg, 3.8 rpg
G–Deuce McBride, 6-2, soph., 15.4 ppg, 4.0 apg
G–Sean McNeil, 6-3, jr., 11.6 ppg, 2.1 rpg
NORTHEASTERN (1-4)
F–Coleman Stucke, 6-7, fr., 6.0 ppg, 1.4 rpg
F–Jason Strong, 6-8, jr., 9.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg
F–Greg Eboigbodin, 6-9, jr., 2.8 ppg, 5.3 rpg
G–Tyson Walker, 6-0, soph., 17.0 ppg, 5.6 apg
G–Shaquille Walters, 6-6, jr., 8.5 ppg, 6.8 rpg
PREDICTION TIME
This WVU team has been hard to figure out against the spread this season. This should be a game the Mountaineers are able to cruise through and get some younger guys involved, but the players are coming off an extended Christmas break, so you never know. I think the 17.5 spread is a lot, so I’ll go with a WVU win, but the Mountaineers don’t cover, 74-59.
Justin’s season picks against the spread: 2-5-1.
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