West Virginia’s defense in question on the road against efficient Oklahoma

MORGANTOWN — In just the latest example of how stats don’t tell the whole story, we offer up the last four games West Virginia has played.

In those four games, WVU walked out of the arena having taken 33 more shots and forcing 18 more turnovers than it committed.

That is generally a good key to success, yet the Mountaineers lost all four match-ups to Kansas, TCU, Iowa State and Texas by a combined 27 points.

WVU STATS

That brings us to the flip side of the numbers.

“The flip side of it is they’re making a lot more,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said Monday. “We’re giving up the highest field-goal percentage (in the Big 12). That’s kind of the tale of everything. You can’t continue to let people shoot 60%.”

While those opponents were getting fewer possessions, they still made a combined 55% of their shots. While WVU was getting more attempts, the Mountaineers combined to shoot just 41%.

Why have teams been so efficient against the Mountaineers?

“Where do you want me to start?” Huggins replies. “We don’t guard the rim the way we are accustomed to guarding the rim. We’re not as near as on-ball defenders as what we’ve been. We don’t have the size and strength on the perimeter that we’ve had before.”

It all plays well into Tuesday’s 7 p.m. road game against Oklahoma (15-14, 5-11 Big 12), which came into Morgantown on Jan. 26 and tore into WVU’s defense for a 72-62 victory. Oklahoma held the lead for the final 32 minutes of that game.

The Sooners shot 51% in the win and Oklahoma is the second-best shooting team in the Big 12, behind only Kansas.

Not only has WVU (14-15, 3-13) not won at the Lloyd Noble Center since 2018 — the Mountaineers are just 2-7 in that arena all-time — it’s got to find a way to get some stops against a team that is efficient.

That obviously didn’t happen in Saturday’s loss against Texas, in which the Longhorns connected on 63.4% of their shots.

To put that into perspective, that’s the highest percentage WVU has allowed in a game since joining the Big 12. The only game in recent history that was comparable was a 97-65 loss against Pepperdine in 2001 when Gale Catlett was still the head coach. Pepperdine shot 63.2% (36 of 57) in that win.

“I can’t imagine how it could have been any worse than what it was,” Huggins said. “I thought we played really hard, we’re just not as good defensively as we’ve been in the past.”

In the Sooners’ first season under head coach Porter Moser, they’ve become somewhat reliant on the 3-point shot, where 41% of the team’s shots come from behind the arc.

And by signing 6-foot-11 forward Tanner Groves as a transfer from Eastern Washington, Moser has found a match-up advantage against most teams.

Groves has 34 3-pointers on the season and is shooting 37% behind the arc. That’s a better percentage than anyone for the Mountaineers outside of Sean McNeil.

“He’s a very skilled 6-11 guy,” Huggins said of Groves, who had 21 points and six rebounds in his first game against WVU this season. “He can shoot it. He can pass it. He can dribble it when need be and he’s got a bunch of versatility. He can play with his back to the basket or facing the basket. There’s not a whole lot he can’t do.”

As far as the Big 12 standings, WVU has already assured itself of last place and the No. 9 seed — Oklahoma State is ineligible for the conference tournament.

Even if WVU were to win its final two regular season games and Oklahoma were to lose its last two, the Sooners hold the tiebreaker with their win against Texas Tech, which is third in the league standings.

West Virginia’s best win is against Iowa State, which is sixth.

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