Defensive battle in store when West Virginia meets No. 16 South Florida

MORGANTOWN — Two top 50 defenses will be on display when West Virginia travels to the West Palm Beach (Fla.) Invitational to take on No. 16 South Florida at 1:15 p.m. Monday.

While the Mountaineers are 49th in the country in scoring defense (55.2 points per game), the Bulls are 28th and haven’t allowed any opponent this season to score more than 62.

That includes a 60-53 loss against Connecticut, before UConn star guard Paige Bueckers was hurt, and it also includes a 57-54 victory against No. 3 Stanford.

USF (8-3) also owns a win against then-No. 9 Oregon and held No. 7 Tennessee to just 52 points in a three-point loss.

To say the Bulls have been tested is an understatement.

WVU STATS

“They shoot a lot of threes and they play a sagging man-to-man to where you’ve got to hit some shots over the top,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “You’re not going to get into the paint easily. It’s going to be one of those (low scoring) games.”

The Mountaineers will play Michigan State (7-4) at 11 a.m. Tuesday in their second game of the invitational.

As far as attacking the Bulls, Carey knows the Mountaineers must cut down on their turnovers to have a chance.

WVU turned the ball over 24 times in last week’s overtime win against James Madison and average the most turnovers (18.6) per game among Big 12 schools.

“I guess I’m going to have to start doing some different things in practice and there will have to be consequences for turnovers,” Carey said. “We don’t value the basketball for some reason. I don’t understand it.”

USF has four players scoring in double figures led by junior guard Sydni Harvey (12.4 ppg), who also leads the team with 28 3-pointers.

Senior forward Bethy Mununga scores 9.2 points per game, but is also ninth in the country averaging 11.9 rebounds per game.

This will be West Virginia’s third game this season against a school currently in the AP Top 25.

“At times this year, I’m thinking our nonconference schedule is a little tough,” Carey said. “I thought we’d be farther along, but when you sit down and think about it, it’s only going to make us better.”

Carey said the Mountaineers’ turnover issues stand out to him more than anything else over the first eight games.

They’ve led to easy points for the opposition and proved costly in WVU’s one-point loss against No. 20 BYU, when it turned the ball over 23 times.

“I keep telling our players when they see one of their teammates in trouble, why not go help them? There’s an idea,” Carey said. “Help your teammate and go to the ball and get it out of the danger zone. It’s easy to stand on the other side and wave your hands in the air and say I’m open.”

WVU has lost three straight against ranked teams and has won just one of its last seven against AP Top 25 competition.

“I know we’re struggling, but it’s not like we’re terrible,” Carey said. “We lost one game by one point (BYU) and Kentucky put it to us. We’ve got to get better. If we want to beat good teams like South Florida and Michigan State, we can’t turn it over 20 times. You can’t overcome that with your defense and scoring.”

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