Huggins pushing the right buttons with the WVU bench
West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins has been onto something in this tournament and pushing all the right buttons when it comes to his bench.
It was first the subtle drop of a statistic prior to the Murray State to freshman Teddy Allen to help get him going. That nudge helped to motivate him to his best game in over a month pouring in 16 points.
It was redshirt sophomore Lamont West’s turn against Marshall.
The one-time starter has accepted his role on the bench and been up and down at times, but that wasn't the case against the Herd. Why?
“Coach told me to hold my follow through up and that’s what I did,” West said. “And they went in.”
Yes, they did.
West reached double-figures for the 16th time this year and the Mountaineers pushed their record to 12-4 in those games beating Marshall in convincing fashion.
For the game, West scored 18 points off the bench hitting 6-10 shots during his time on the floor and releasing the ball with confidence. But perhaps more intriguing was the fact he recorded his first double-double with 10 boards as he was active in that department against the smaller Thundering Herd lineup.
“My teammates did a good job getting me the ball and ran a lot of plays that got me open,” West said. “And I just knocked them down.”
But it wasn’t just West.
The Mountaineers bench scored 39 total points outpacing their Marshall group by 18, with strong contributions by Allen for the second consecutive game with 8 points and redshirt sophomore guard James Bolden getting into double figures with 11 points.
It was that second wave of players that helped to change the direction of the first half bringing energy on the court and erasing a 16-8 deficit with a 34-9 run to close the opening frame.
“We wanted to come in and play hard. We turned defense into offense,” West said. “Once we got the turnovers the offense started coming.”
The Mountaineers, according to Huggins, are now 9-0 between the Big 12 slate and the two NCAA Tournament games when getting double-figures from at least four players. That was the statistic that Huggins slid over to Allen prior to the beginning of the tournament and it’s carrying over.
“We’re a great team when we’ve got a lot of guys scoring,” Allen said.
The Mountaineers were plus nine against Murray State in that department and the focus of that second wave is to come in and make a difference on both ends of the floor.
“Energy off the bench,” Bolden said. “We want to create a spark for us.”
And if Huggins is able to continue to channel what he needs out of his team moving forward, it makes an already dangerous team that much more lethal as March moves on and so do the Mountaineers.
