West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries had been begging his team to turn in a full 40-minute performance, and they did just that on Tuesday in their 73-55 win over TCU.
"I was really pleased, especially defensively. We put a full 40 minutes together there that I thought was really good. In that first half that looked like us early in the year. Those first 15 minutes we were getting stops, we were getting out running," DeVries said.
The Mountaineers trailed 5-0 early, but then went on an 18-0 run and an extended 23-2 run as they took full control of the game in the first half. It was led by their tenacity on the defensive end led by Sencire Harris. Harris would run the point of WVU's defense, and he also turned in a career-high 13 points as well.
"It starts with him, with our defense. And when he's playing at that level, he's as good as there is in the country, if not the best in the country, of managing the ball up on top of the perimeter, and then everybody else can just play behind him. And that's a great luxury to have as a coach," DeVries said.
Another guy who put on a show was Javon Small. Small had 23 points to go along with 10 assists. He was 8-for-16 from the field and 6-for-11 from beyond the arc.
"I thought he was terrific," DeVries said. "And we told him we've got to have him continue to be aggressive. Whether it be scoring, assisting, I mean, he is 23 [points] and 10 [assists], and we're putting a lot on him, but that's what type of player he is. He's capable of doing that and handling that, oh, and then we're going to ask him to guard one of their best players, too. But just a great effort, again, by him and a lot of guys. But mentioning him, 6 for 11 from three, and he doesn't get a lot of easy ones either."
From three, West Virginia made 11 in a game for the first time since Jan. 4, as they had not made more than nine 3-pointers in a game since then.
"Going 11 for 26 for threes, that was a welcome sight for our team," DeVries said.
DeVries knows how big of a win this was for his group as there are only three games remaining before the Big 12 Tournament.
"It was one we knew we had to have. Home games, you got to take care of your home court as best you can throughout the conference race and we knew this was a critical one for us as we get ready for a very tough road trip in BYU and Utah. But it's that time of year. There's only three left in the regular season. Every game is very important, and we know that. And we're going to go there and get ready to go compete," DeVries said.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
