Sencire Harris and Toby Okani were the first ones to admit West Virginia's effort on defense was not good enough against Arizona on Tuesday.
"I just think we weren’t as locked in as we usually are. That’s completely on the players because they had us ready. We just want to do better and lock in for the next game coming up," Okani said.
West Virginia dropped their first game since November and the Mountaineers know it's because of how they played on the defensive end. Arizona's 51 percent shooting was the best an opponent has shot against the Mountaineers, while the Wildcats made their second-most 3-pointers in a game this season.
"I feel like they’re a very good team but we’ve seen good teams as well and that we can guard them, and that we’re just going to do better. We just weren’t hooked up or focused tonight," Okani said.
Coming into Tuesday, West Virginia's calling card had been their play on defense. In their past two wins against Kansas and Oklahoma State, the Mountaineers held them to a combined 7-for-37 from beyond the arc. Arizona alone made seven 3-pointers as they shot 7-for-20 from deep.
Harris has been the catalyst on defense for the Mountaineers and on Tuesday he did not record a block or a steal.
"I think that was just what coach said. We [weren’t] being tougher, we [weren’t] fighting through screens enough. That’s on me because I’m that guy that’s supposed to be more energetic, be more physical, and that’s my role here. Be a [defender] and feed that energy to my team," Harris said.
Head coach Darian DeVries pointed to the ability of Arizona to fill up the lane and then also have open shots on the outside. Out of their 75 points, 57 of them came either in the paint or from beyond the arc.
"We’ve been really good being able to cover for one another and plug up those driving lanes and still get out to those perimeter shooters. I thought tonight they were able to split us a lot and get into the paint and now they’re getting at the rim and getting kick-out threes. So. now you’re in real trouble," DeVries said.
The Mountaineers tried to change things up multiple times in terms of how they were going to guard ball screens and how aggressive they would be on an opponent driving. DeVries said he didn't feel as though his team rotated enough on defense and they continued to allow wide-open looks.
"I thought at times the hedging and stuff was really good to us, it made us more aggressive, we were able to keep them out of the paint, but our backside there was times as you saw, their centers were rolling and we didn’t have anybody there. Our rotations were just a little bit off on a few of those," DeVries said.
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