It was an unfortunate case of deja vu for West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries against BYU.
The Mountaineers had used a 9-0 run to take a 19-15 lead with 2:58 remaining in the first half when a media timeout sent the teams to their respective benches. West Virginia had effectively executed their plan by frustrating the Cougars and controlling the pace.
“We had the game going exactly how we wanted. We had the crowd out of it. The tempo, we were trying to slow it down in their building,” DeVries said.
That’s when DeVries and the rest of the coaching staff reminded his team to finish the half strong unlike what unfolded against Texas Tech a week ago when West Virginia led 27-20 with 4:09 left in the half before the Red Raiders used a 15-3 run to take control before the break.
That meant finishing off the half with the same defensive intensity that got them out front this time around and taking good shots to finish things strong. But that’s not what occurred as the Cougars would use a 10-0 run to seize a 25-19 edge before the break.
“It just didn’t happen,” DeVries said.
But even with that occurring, West Virginia was still very much in the game and had limited a team that had scored 90 points in their last three games to just 25. But that is when things flipped further and BYU was able to get downhill to the rim and also control the paint in the second half to turn a tightly contested game into a 77-56 defeat.
BYU scored 52 points in the second half and the flood gates opened as the Cougars took advantage of both one-on-one looks in the post or kicking it out for threes when West Virginia elected to double.
“Neither strategy worked in the second half,” he said.
Overall, DeVries felt that his team simply didn’t have the same edge on defense as they did in the first half and when you combine that with poor shooting that allowed BYU to get in transition it didn’t help.
“You could see us getting deflated a little bit and our talk wasn’t as good and all the sudden they’re shooting threes and getting downhill and getting to the rim,” he said.
West Virginia also had to abandon their plan to slow the game down in hopes of trying to catch up, which played into the hands of what the Cougars wanted to do. It was a recipe for what unfolded.
Still, DeVries was pleased with how his team continued to fight down the stretch and finished the game by cutting the eventual difference down to 21-points. While that might seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things, that is a good sign of where the team was at mentally despite the tough outcome.
BYU has now won six consecutive games including a pair over the Mountaineers but the key over the final two games of the season is to avoid this loss from affecting the ultimate goal of attempting to close the season strong.
At 17-12 and 8-10 in the Big 12, West Virginia still has a lot left to play for in regard to the NCAA Tournament starting with the second game of the road trip at Utah Tuesday night.
“We have another really tough game at Utah, who plays well at home. We just got to move forward. We’ve got two games left in the regular season and we’ve got to go get a win,” DeVries said.
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