MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Somewhere between Avery Anderson’s unrelenting drives to the bucket, Keylan Boone’s 3-point shooting and Bernard Kouma’s crashing of the boards lied the blueprint to what one day may be the Mountaineers undoing.
Think about every one of the Mountaineers’ eight losses this season.
Every one of them, except for the loss at Kansas in December — that was bad offense and bad defense combined — was a mixture of coming up just short on offense while the defense opened up the doors to the paint and just let anyone walk right on through.
“We can’t guard, I told you guys that and then I get crucified for telling the truth,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said Saturday, after maybe No. 6 West Virginia came up with its most disappointing effort of the season during an 85-80 loss against Oklahoma State at the Coliseum. “We can’t guard. We don’t guard.”
And on a day when Sean McNeil is 3 of 13 shooting, Deuce McBride doesn’t hit a 3-pointer, and Taz Sherman needs 15 shots to score 20, you need some defense to come to the rescue.
If that would have been the case — WVU’s defense making an impact — it would have been truly a day to remember, because the Mountaineers had everything to gain with a win.
Bob Huggins would have coached win No. 900, the Mountaineers would have earned the No. 2 seed in the Big 12 Tournament, heck, it was even Senior Day, when your team is supposed to be on this emotional lift to send the seniors out with a win.
Except none of that happened, because West Virginia’s defense is basically a wet paper towel at the moment.
Fifty points, you read that right, 50 points were scored in the paint by the Cowboys.
“Honestly, it’s just something we haven’t been good at all year,” McBride said about opposing teams scoring on drives to the rim. “I honestly can’t tell you why. I think our help defense has been our weak point.
“Everybody is going to get beat (on drives), it’s college basketball. The difference is help defense and I think they played better help defense than we do.”
So, you sit back and say, ‘Well, stop playing so much man-to-man,’ right?
“We tried to play some match-up (zone) to try and camouflage the fact that we can’t guard,” Huggins said. “Of course, everyone watches film like we do, and so they worked against the match-up.”
Truth is, Huggins has tried a number of different things and zone defenses to hide his team’s deficiencies throughout the season.
Eventually, especially when the opposing team has some good offensive talent, you get exposed.
That should not have been the case Saturday.
Sure, the Cowboys have good players, it’s just the majority of them were sitting on the sidelines with an injury and didn’t even suit up.
Losing at home against Oklahoma State is nothing to be ashamed of. What OSU head coach Mike Boynton has accomplished in the last three seasons in rebuilding that program is
remarkable.
Losing to this Cowboys team, though, one without Cade Cunningham and Isaac Likekele, is a more than just a head scratcher and maybe just a small step above embarrassing.
WVU needed a miracle the first time to beat OSU, a 19-point comeback win in the second half, and that was with Cunningham and Likekele in the lineup.
We bring this up, because it’s probable the Mountaineers will now fall to the No. 4 seed and Oklahoma State will be the No. 5 seed, so these two schools will likely play again on Thursday in the Big 12
quarterfinals.
This time, my guess, is Cunningham and Likekele will be in action.
The only good thing about that is it may take the ball out of Anderson’s hands. He couldn’t be stopped Saturday, scoring a career-high 31 points and only took two 3-point shots along the way to reach that milestone.
“He didn’t really do anything complicated,” McBride said of Anderson. “I think he made some tough shots and he made plays when they needed him to make plays.”
It is now the postseason, where hearts can be broken on a daily basis.
If that day should ever come for the Mountaineers this season, rest assured, you will know the root of the problem.
It will be a story you have read before and a game you have already invested time to watch on TV.
It will be a game just like Saturday, where the Mountaineers needed some defensive effort, but were unable to find it.
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