MORGANTOWN — All Mike Boynton Jr. needed was a stat sheet.
All the WVU men’s basketball team needed was a wake-up call.
Both went hand-in-hand Monday night, as the Mountaineers ended their three-game losing skid by taking down the Cowboys 85-67 inside the Coliseum.
“The stat sheet doesn’t always tell the story of the game, but I’m pretty confident saying the stat sheet tells a lot, if not all, of our story tonight,” Boynton began.
On that piece in paper in front of him was Oklahoma State going just 2 of 19 from 3-point range and turning the ball over 18 times.
“I mean, you have to make some threes,” Boynton said.
For WVU (16-12, 5-10 Big 12), that stat sheet represented a defensive performance that hasn’t been there all season.
No team in the Big 12 has allowed more points this season than the Mountaineers, while WVU is ninth in the conference in both opponent’s field-goal percentage and 3-point shooting percentage.
For the better part of the season, WVU’s defense was judged by how much pressure Kedrian Johnson could supply on the ball, a few impressive blocked shots from back-up center James Okonkwo and Emmitt Matthews Jr. sliding over to give help whenever he could.
Everything else seemingly was a cross of the fingers and hope for the best.
That all began to change against the Cowboys, who didn’t hit their 10th basket of the game until the early minutes of the second half.
“It was a good overall effort on both ends of the floor for 40 minutes,” was the way WVU guard Erik Stevenson put it. “That was our goal coming, because if we play for 40 minutes, we can beat anybody. That’s been our bug-a-boo, being inconsistent at times when we didn’t need inconsistency.”
The overall defensive effort may have best been displayed from forward Tre Mitchell.
It was WVU head coach Bob Huggins who joked afterwards he didn’t believe Mitchell could spell “defense” earlier in the season, but followed that up by saying Mitchell’s play on that end of the floor was the best it had been all season.
“I thought that was, without a question, his best overall performance,” Huggins said. “We were all congratulating him in the locker room, because he really did a good job of guarding. He switched off on guards and stayed in front of them. He really did a good job on moving his feet. That’s the best I’ve ever seen Tre play.”
The question now: Can the Mountaineers keep it up when they visit No. 3 Kansas on Saturday?
WVU is 0-10 at Allen Fieldhouse and Kansas has won the last four meetings by an average of 18 points per game.
Kansas (23-5, 11-4) will enter the matchup on a five-game winning streak and in position to earn the top seed for the Big 12 tournament.
“Energy is the word. Energy, intensity and focus, they all go hand-in-hand,” Stevenson said. “We had it today, and it showed. We need to continue to do this and bring it into Allen Fieldhouse.”
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