MORGANTOWN — It’s official, West Virginia has a big problem with Houston.
More to the point, the Mountaineers — much like everyone else in the country — haven’t solved the Cougars defense.
The sixth-ranked Cougars shined in that part of the game Wednesday night inside the Coliseum, holding WVU to its lowest scoring total in nearly five years on their way to a 63-49 victory.
“The last eight years, that’s probably what we’ve been known for,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “This team is a little bit better offensively than some of the other teams, but we’ve had some really good defensive teams.”
The Mountaineers (13-7, 4-5 Big 12) have to be a believer. In two games this season against Houston (17-3, 9-0), WVU hasn’t scored more than 54 points.
It goes further than that. No WVU player reached double figures in scoring on Wednesday. WVU leading scorer Javon Small didn’t even get off his first shot of the game until it was nine minutes old. He didn’t score his first basket until nearly 10 minutes had passed.
“Defensively, I mean they’re just well-connected. They’re very aggressive,” WVU head coach Darian DeVries said. “They actually, tonight, were less aggressive in trapping ball screens, because they wanted to switch a little bit more to take away some of our pick and pops that Amani (Hansberry) had hurt them at their place with.
“But they do a great job. They really load to the ball. It’s hard to really crack them and not many teams have.”
Houston’s defense led to an early 13-3 run to begin the game and a 39-19 lead at halftime.
“That’s on the players,” WVU forward Toby Okani said. “The coaches had us prepared. They put together a good game plan. It’s on us to go out there and execute. We didn’t do that.”
There came a push in the second half, but it was not enough to keep WVU from dropping its third consecutive contest with a road game at Cincinnati on the horizon on Sunday.
WVU began the second half on a 14-2 run, and got as close as five points from the lead twice.
“The reason we got back into the game; I felt like our guys played defensively at a level that they’re capable of,” DeVries said. “For us, when we’re good, it’s our defense.”
Those opportunities to draw closer only brought frustration, especially when points were so hard to come by.
WVU went 4 of 9 from the foul line and missed three front ends of a one-and-one. Jonathan Powell’s miss from the line came with WVU trailing 49-44 with seven minutes remaining, when two free throws could have cut the lead to three points.
“I think they cut it to five and had a chance to cut it to three. They had someone at the free throw line, and he missed the one-and-one,” Sampson said. “From there, we got in the fight. They were not in the fight the first half and we were not in the fight for the first seven or eight minutes of the second half.”
Houston closed it out with a traditional three-point play from L.J. Cryer, who finished with 17 points and Milos Uzan nailed a 3-pointer. Cryer’s turnaround jumper with 2:49 left sealed the deal and gave Houston a 13-point cushion with just 2:49 left.
“This isn’t a beauty contest,” Sampson said. “They don’t put pictures beside the score. It’s a win. I’m proud of our kids for coming back.”
Notes
** Small left the game with 9:05 left in the second half, favoring his right leg. He headed back into the locker room, before coming back out to the floor seconds later. He rode a stationary bike and was back into the game after only two minutes had come off the clock.
** Houston outrebounded WVU 34-19. The Cougars came up with 13 offensive rebounds. It’s the eighth time in nine Big 12 games the Mountaineers have been beaten on the boards.
