Focus shifts to NCAA Tournament for WVU
In the end, there wasn’t much West Virginia could do.
During the second half of Saturday’s Big 12 Championship game, Kansas shot 72 percent from the field and 69 percent from three-point range on its way to closing out the game on a 25-7 run. Overall, the Jayhawks shot 56 percent from both the field and three-point range.
“They’re going to beat everybody when they do that,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said. “They were contested shots. We didn’t give them wide-open shots. They were contested. They made ’em.”
For the third straight season, West Virginia has come up empty-handed in the Big 12 title game, but a new journey has begun for the Mountaineers.
West Virginia now shifts its focus from the conference tournament to the NCAA Tournament and the team’s destination will be revealed on Selection Sunday at 6 p.m. ET.
“We’re disappointed,” West Virginia sophomore guard James “Beetle” Bolden said. “We gotta quickly forget this one and get ready for whoever we play next week.”
West Virginia has been projected to be seeded anywhere from No. 3 to No. 5 in the upcoming tournament and the Mountaineers bring a solid resume to the big dance according to Huggins.
That resume includes a win over ACC Tournament champion Virginia, who is projected to be the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. West Virginia also racked up 11 wins in a conference that has widely been regarded as one of the toughest in college basketball.
West Virginia and Kansas are the only two Big 12 teams that have won 11 or more conference games in each of the last four seasons, but aside from the team’s credentials, Huggins’ main concern and priority with the team is their ability to make shots early and often.
“I think we’ll be okay,” Huggins said. “We’ve just got to, you know, you can’t miss shots. We just missed shots. We missed a couple of lay-ins. We can’t do that.”
The Mountaineers managed to shoot 40 percent from the field against Kansas, but it was in the game’s final 10 minutes where West Virginia went cold and its shooting woes came to a climax.
Kansas held West Virginia scoreless for the final 2:58 of the game and the Mountaineers were held to just two field goals in the final 9:37 as the team missed eight of its final nine field goal attempts.
“Every shot (Kansas) put up went in,” West Virginia senior guard Jevon Carter said. “We went cold, they kept hitting and that’s when they went out and got the lead.”
Shooting woes hurt West Virginia during its Sweet 16 loss to Gonzaga as the team shot just 27 percent from the field and according to Huggins, the team cannot afford to struggle offensively in the tournament.
“We’re not good enough to overcome that,” Huggins said. “We don’t surround the line with all those guys that can make shots. We’ve got guys that quite frankly when they make one we all stand up and cheer because we’re shocked as hell.”
Despite struggling to make shots this at times this season and in the tournament last year, West Virginia's competitiveness has allowed the team to both win and remain in games against tough opponents.
“They played hard,” Huggins said following Saturday’s loss to Kansas. “We’re able to compete because they compete their butts off.”
West Virginia’s NCAA Tournament run will also be the last for the team’s seniors in Carter and Daxter Miles Jr., who will look to further cement their college careers and help the Mountaineers make a deep tournament run one last time.
“I think about it every day, but like I said, I’ll worry about it after,” Miles said. “Journey’s not over.”
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