Huggins: We are a team that stands and watches
By his own admission, head coach Bob Huggins has pulled back on this team more than perhaps any he’s ever coached when it comes to practice and trying to save their legs.
He could be having some second thoughts on that practice.
“For the last two weeks I’ve been doing everything that I know to do other than I didn’t want to just continue to put them on the treadmill because it’s late in the year and you worry about guys having legs,” Huggins said. “But I’m going to have to start.”
West Virginia had a long list of issues in its 87-79 loss to Texas, but none that bothered the veteran head coach as much as the ones his teams could control. Namely effort on the defensive end and when it came to attacking the glass, two trademarks under Huggins.
A lot of standing around and watching, instead of forcing the issue.
“We don’t even attempt to rebound the ball. We don’t even make an attempt anymore,” Huggins said. “We’re used to having three guys on the weak side, we have none. Nobody is there, we have to fix it.”
The Longhorns consistently attacked the basket for good shots with the Mountaineers struggling to stop straight line drives, something that has been a weakness of late. That resulted in Texas shooting 57-percent from the floor, while West Virginia again settled for too many jump shots.
The Mountaineers hit only six of their 27 attempts from three, while it also was a struggle around the rim to finish as well something Huggins has an explanation for too.
“We’re so worried about contract we don’t keep our eyes on the rim,” he said.
Many of those looks for the Longhorns that weren’t at the basket were step in shots which has been one of the primary focuses to avoid allowing opponents to do just that.
“We have become a team that just stands and watches,” he said. “We don’t play anymore.”
The success Texas had driving the ball forced Huggins into a zone look that again was unsuccessful and overall the effort with defense bothered the veteran coach. Especially because as a team West Virginia continues to struggle with help defense once an opponent gets past the first defender on a drive.
“I wish we would have made a shot once in a while or guarded somebody, maybe try to get a rebound,” Huggins said.
The loss cost West Virginia the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament, instead allowing Texas Tech to take that spot however, Huggins didn’t care which team he was seeded against calling each of them good.
But one thing is clear, if West Virginia wants to make any sort of run in march there is work to do and the Mountaineers have to stop cutting things short and search for easy ways out.
“We’re going to have to fix some things,” he said. “Too many things we need to fix.”
