For the third game in a row, West Virginia came out flat in the first half. For the third game in a row, West Virginia found itself on the wrong side of things, this time falling to No. 6 Houston on Wednesday.
The Mountaineers trailed by 20 at halftime but cut the Cougars' lead to as few as five points on two separate occasions in the second half.
For WVU head coach Darian DeVries, he hopes his team's strong second half can give them positive momentum despite suffering their third loss in as many games.
That second half, that’s us," DeVries said. "Like we’ve talked to them about, in the games we’ve been really good, or the halves we’ve been really good, it’s the same guys in that locker room. It’s not like somebody left the team or we added a new guy. When we’ve won the games we’ve won, they’ve played at that level.
"Just getting after it, playing as hard as you can, disrupting on defense, and as a coach right now, you hope you’ve found that back in the second half because the last two first halves we’ve come out not playing that way."
The Mountaineers were able to flip the box score from how things shaped out in the opening 20 minutes as they tried to flip the score. WVU opened the second half on an 11-0 run, as they were the enforcer early on.
WVU forced nine second-half turnovers, but only one came in the final seven minutes of the second half.
Those nine turnovers led to 12 points for the Mountaineers as they were able to get better looks on offense as well, shooting 57 percent from the field in the second half.
"I thought our physicality on the offensive end improved as well. I thought when we were getting to more of the 50-50 balls and things there for a stretch. Just again, our overall tenacity to try to go get the ball and powerful drives and getting to the rim and those types of things I thought was great.
"I thought from a second-half perspective there was a lot of things to be very pleased with. Just again, when you’re down 20 to a team like Houston, and that’s an incredibly difficult challenge to try and come back from. And so that part was disappointing," DeVries said.
DeVries hopes his team can carry what they did in the second half into a positive result as they begin a two-game road trip this weekend.
"It’s a long season. You go through stretches like we said where we’re playing great and unfortunately we’re in a stretch where we haven’t played as well. That locker room is still filled with really good guys, really high character guys, and they’re going to find a way to fight back," DeVries said.
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