West Virginia shot 47-percent from the floor and had only 7 turnovers against BYU but again it was the defensive end that caused issues in the 73-69 loss to the Cougars.
After holding the opposition to just 36-percent from the floor in the first half with 9 turnovers, the Cougars were at 56-percent in the second and only turned the ball over 3 times.
“We just lost a lot of our discipline playing in front of us and they were playing downhill the whole second half and then we were in rotations which you can get in against that team because now it’s layups and kickout threes,” head coach Darian DeVries said. “In the first half, we didn’t do that.”
The first-year head coach felt that the Mountaineers did a good job of fighting the ball but staying in front of the Cougars but struggled in the second. BYU had 20 points in the paint in the second half and were at 1.519 points per possession.
And while West Virginia did their job offensively, they couldn’t string together the stops to put any sort of distance between the two teams.
“It’s just we know we are better than how we are defending, and we gave them too many I’d say scouting report points and that was just it,” forward Toby Okani said. “We know we can play better, and we will be.”
The Mountaineers held a 62-56 lead with 6:33 remaining but the Cougars used a quick 9-0 run to seize a 65-62 advantage with just 1:48 off the clock.
During that run, there were two turnovers which led to easy baskets for the Cougars.
“We’re scoring, getting that lead up to four and six and we just kept exchanging baskets. We weren’t able to get that thing pushed up to double digits. And then it gets late, now you put yourself in a spot where they make a late three on the clock and you’re in a tie game,” DeVries said.
Those issues even showed on the final possession when West Virginia was switching everything and messed up the switch with two guys going to the ball and Mihailo Boskovic rolled to the rim for an easy basket that he scored and was fouled to put BYU up four seconds with just nine seconds remaining.
The margins are always thin in a league as competitive as the Big 12 Conference and for West Virginia to have success the defense needs to be consistent. It’s been the message from DeVries all season and again proved to be the undoing despite the strong offensive team effort.
“For a game where our offense was rolling the way it was, that's a game we should have put away. And we didn't do that because our defense wasn't what we needed it to be,” DeVries said.
West Virginia wants elite ball pressure in order to challenge ball handlers, but everybody on the roster has to play within their capabilities to keep their man in front of them. Because once that occurs, it becomes a numbers game and requires discipline all around.
“We want them on the ball. We want them physical. But you have to have some discipline with it too,” DeVries said.
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