MORGANTOWN — In Bob Huggins’ own words, he’s still waiting on WVU to play a “sharp” game.
Despite WVU shooting a season-high 55.6% from the floor in a 92-58 victory against Penn on Friday night, Huggins saw too many mistakes.
“How many times did we throw the ball out of bounds in transition?” Huggins began. “How many did we throw to the other team trying to make a hero play? Those things we have to wipe out. There’s probably been at least five or six times that we’ve had transition two-on-one or sometimes three-on-one and instead of making the appropriate pass, we try to throw it up over the backboard so some guy can jump up and miss it.”
The Mountaineers were also out-rebounded 38-29, but made up for that by forcing 18 turnovers and scoring 21 points off those turnovers.
“We didn’t execute a lot of things that have been really good for us,” Huggins continued. “I think consistency might be the best word. We lack consistency at this point in time, and we lack consistency at the defensive end.”
Season highs and lows
WVU connected on a season-high 12 3-pointers, the most since knocking in 14 against Oklahoma last season.
“I didn’t really feel like I was hot,” said WVU guard Erik Stevenson, who was a perfect 4 of 4 from behind the arc and finished with 21 points. “I’ve been in games where I knew it was going in, but tonight, I was just shooting it and it was dropping for me. It was just my night.
That’s the beauty of this team is we’ve got maybe seven guys who can do that on any given night. We’ve seen that in practice.”
WVU also had a season-low seven turnovers, the fewest since Kansas this past February.
New guy in town
Manhattan transfer Jose Perez enrolled at WVU Thursday and the 6-foot-5 guard took in the game while on the Mountaineers’ bench.
Huggins said there was no further update on Perez’s status.
The school is waiting on clearance from the NCAA in order to get Perez practicing and into the lineup.
News and notes
** Huggins has now coached 1,319 games, but Friday night was his first against a team from The Ivy League.
“I should have been an Ivy Leaguer, probably, with my intelligence,” he joked. “Really, is that the truth? That’s the first time I’ve coached against an Ivy League team? It’s a good thing I waited a while.”
The Mountaineers are now 12-8 all-time against Ivy League schools.
** Huggins moved into a tie for third place with Jim Calhoun on the all-time Division I wins list with 920 career victories.
He now trails only Mike Krzyzewski (1,202) and Jim Boeheim (999) on the all-time list.
** WVU forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. scored seven points and now just needs five more to reach 1,000 for his college career.
That total includes the 362 points he scored at Washington last season. At WVU, Matthews has 633 career points.
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