MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Jalen Bridges didn’t wait around for foul trouble to become part of the equation Saturday.
Rather, the former Fairmont Senior standout made an early impact in No. 14 West Virginia’s 69-47 victory against Kansas State at Bramlage Coliseum.
He hit his first 3-pointer right out of the gate and then followed that up with a slam dunk on a back-door play after taking in a nice pass from Deuce McBride along the baseline.
“I feel like now I’m a smarter defensive player who doesn’t want to get in foul trouble,” said Bridges, who scored 12 points on 5 of 6 shooting in the win.
Bridges was limited to a combined 30 minutes against Oklahoma State and Texas having been whistled for four fouls in each game.
“A lot of those fouls were because I was late on rotations,” Bridges said. “I’ve tightened those up. Now, I’m starting to fly around a little bit and it’s making our team defense better.”
That defense held K-State to just 38% shooting and the Wildcats were also held to 16 baskets over 40 minutes.
Not bad for a team that has had four guys practicing over the past two weeks with seven others out due to COVID-19 protocols.
“What we really worked on was our defense,” McBride said. “That was about all we could work on.”
Searching the numbers
There were some stats that really stood out, beginning with Kansas State’s 28 turnovers, the most ever by a team coached by Bruce Weber.
WVU forced 18 of those in a first half that saw the Mountaineers (10-4, 3-3 Big 12) jump out to a 21-4 lead over the first 11 minutes of the game.
It was the most turnovers forced by a WVU team since Baylor turned it over 29 times on Jan. 10, 2017.
“Our defense, I thought we stepped up big,” McBride said. “We knew we were going to struggle to make some shots, but defensively, I thought we played some of our best defense all year.”
What stood out on Kansas State’s end was the Wildcats (5-11, 1-7) came away with a 37-24 edge on the glass.
“Rebounding, some of that was us turning it over so much that they didn’t have as many rebounds but we did hold them to five offensive rebounds,” Weber said. “That was really good, because normally they rebound approximately 50% of their misses, so that part of it with our half-court defense outside of a handful of possessions was really good.”
It was the least amount of rebounds WVU has had in a game since grabbing 23 in a loss at Texas Tech last season.
Derek Culver, who was one of the Mountaineers who had to sit out due to COVID-19 protocols and didn’t practice until Friday, finished with just four rebounds, six less than his season average.
“We’ve definitely got to give D.C. more help down there,” Bridges said. “He can’t be the only one rebounding. I feel like a couple of times, I was there, but I’ve got to grab it and secure or tap it out to a teammate, something just to help out.”
WVU head coach Bob Huggins said WVU’s lack of rebounding came from Kansas State forcing up a lot of outside shots while trying to mount a comeback.
“It wasn’t our bigs,” Huggins said. “Our bigs can’t rebound it when they shoot a bunch of threes. The ball is bouncing well over their head. It’s a matter of if we play three guards, those guards have to do a better of blocking out and staying between their guy and the rim and rebounding the ball to help us.”
New lineup
Having had seven players in quarantine for 10 days, Huggins entered Saturday’s game not knowing how many minutes he could get from his players or how they would react conditioning-wise once they were on the floor.
He inserted Taz Sherman and Jordan McCabe into the starting lineup — their first starts of the season — while bringing usual starters Emmitt Matthews Jr. and Sean McNeil off the bench.
Sherman finished with 10 points and nailed consecutive 3-pointers midway through the second half that help put the game away. McCabe added five assists.
“I didn’t know who we were really going to have until (Friday) afternoon,” Huggins said. “Jordan has never really missed anything. I knew he could help those guys who weren’t up to speed.”
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