Huggins, WVU getting to work on fixing issues from opener
Coming off an 88-65 loss to Texas A&M in the season opener, West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins was asked a simple question; can he fix it?
“I think that’s what they pay me for,” he replied.
And as he has done in the past Huggins made it clear that the issues will be corrected and isn’t going leave much leeway for an alternative when it comes to his players.
“I try not to give them a choice,” Huggins said when it comes to improving.
The Mountaineers jumped out to an early advantage against the Aggies leading by as many as 13-points in the first half, but didn’t respond to a late run. That’s when the game spiraled out of control as West Virginia was unable to string anything together and fell into too deep of a hole.
“We weren’t in very good shape and we had some things that didn’t go right. I think we put our head down a little bit and we didn’t respond to it the way we need to respond,” Huggins said.
Given the fact that senior guard Daxter Miles had missed almost half the practices leading up to the opener, the Mountaineers really only had one veteran presence on the floor in fellow senior backcourt mate Jevon Carter. And although the Mountaineers had 30-practices to prepare for the game, Huggins points out that it isn’t as much time as it seems considering all the things that they have to go over.
The head coach pointed the blame at himself as well for the lack of transition defense, an area that the Mountaineers are expected to be good in considering the style of play. Adding to the struggles was the fact that West Virginia attempted over 40 threes and made only 12 leading to run outs.
“I did a bad job with transition defense. We were horrible in transition defense and they took advantage of it. We were actually better coming out of the press than a missed shot,” he said.
“We went over it a little bit and assumed they knew some things they didn’t know,” he added.
Post scoring also was an issue and while junior Esa Ahmad will help fill that void when he returns from suspension in January, for now the Mountaineers have to get better production out of sophomores Sagaba Konate and Maciej Bender while junior college transfer Wesley Harris could help as well.
Much like what happened a year ago with Elijah Macon, Huggins expects that those players will continue to improve throughout the course of the year as well. However, he fully admitted that for now neither of those players are the presence that former forward Devin Williams was on the block.
That means there has to be more productivity in the backcourt along with Carter which includes Miles practicing more and getting back into a rhythm, sophomore Chase Harler slowing himself down on the offensive end and James Bolden improving on the opposite end of the floor.
The final piece of the puzzle was turnovers and shot selection, two areas that must improve.
Some of those issues can’t be exposed until actually suiting up and playing a game, something that was hampered by the way that the Mountaineers controlled the Albany game and the Purdue scrimmage was a different type of team that was smaller as opposed to the size of Texas A&M.
But Huggins also recognizes that the slate isn’t an easy one.
“We’re playing a hard schedule. We’re not playing the sisters of the poor. We scheduled like we were going to be pretty good,” he said. “...When we did the schedule we thought we had more guys than we have. But we’ll be alright.”
West Virginia will open the home schedule against American at 7 p.m. inside the Coliseum. The Eagles are coming off an 8-22 season a year ago and lost to Kansas State in their opener 83-45.
