West Virginia trailed by only three at halftime against No. 9 Texas Tech on Saturday.
After leading for more than 16 minutes in the first half, the second half had a completely different feel as the Mountaineers lost 73-51.
"They shot 62 percent in the second half and that's where the game got away from us. We can survive some scoring droughts if you will but not if our defense but isn't hooked up. In the first half, they shot 34 percent and scored 30 points and we're right where we need to be to be in position," head coach Darian DeVries said.
West Virginia simply couldn't make a shot in the second half, while Texas Tech seemingly couldn't miss.
The Mountaineers went 29.6 percent from the field in the second half, including a 2-for-11 mark from beyond the arc. Conversely, the Red Raiders shot 63 percent from the field, going 7-for-11 from beyond the arc.
"The second half right from the first possession, as good a job as we did in the first half of limiting their bigs on the interior, the second half, we weren't nearly as tough and physical and fighting catches and things. And once those guys get it down in a position where they can go score, they're pretty darn good," DeVries said.
DeVries said not a ton changed schematically from the first half and second half for the Red Raiders, but it was just his defense not being together.
"In the second half, we just didn't get our defense as put together and wasn't nearly as stout as we were in the first half, for sure," Devries said.
Despite the loss, DeVries said his team's focus is on the opportunity that awaits them this week. The Mountaineers are teetering in bubble territory in terms of the NCAA Tournament and DeVries knows their game against TCU is a must-win game for his group.
I told the team, we were in position we wanted to be in to start the second half and we didn't do what we needed to do to pull this one out," DeVries said.
"But these are huge games, home games, Tuesday night, late night. You're at that time of year where these games are absolutely critical to make sure you're ready to go and play and can't hang on to this one very long. So let's go home and get our minds right and then get ready to go play a TCU team that we lost a very close one to at their place. So a big, big game for us and we know these home crowds and stuff like you saw today, they're tough environments and we need to have a really tough one on Tuesday to make sure we give ourselves every advantage we can to be back in Morgantown and playing at home."
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