West Virginia basketball gets defensive against Kansas State
This West Virginia Mountaineers basketball team has showcased a lot of ways to win basketball games since the calendar flipped into the New Year.
And against Kansas State, they did it on the defensive end of the floor.
The Mountaineers were in dogfight at halftime leading only 26-22 after struggling to find their mark on the offensive end shooting only 33-percent with 9 turnovers. But were able to stretch things out in the second frame in large part because of what they were able to do on the defensive end.
West Virginia allowed only 21 points over those final 20-minutes and held the Wildcats to 28-percent from the field as players were active and engaged.
The total of 43 points was the lowest that the Mountaineers had allowed this year and fewest since holding Oklahoma State to 40 points last season. The Wildcats finished with 18 turnovers for the game and hit only 3-19 from three. West Virginia scored 23 points off those Kansas State mistakes.
“Our defense was better in the second half. It was much better,” head coach Bob Huggins said.
That was critical because neither team came out with much energy to begin the game and the Mountaineers weren’t able to put the ball in the basket. That meant finding another way to create momentum and they were able to do that by getting stops on defense and turning that into points.
“We made some adjustments and figured out who we were going to be. Came out in the second half and kind of showed that. We picked up our defensive intensity up and led to some easy buckets. We got momentum and confidence,” junior guard Sean McNeil said.
That’s important because that end of the floor has been the biggest issue for this team over the last 13 games. The Mountaineers have mixed in some matchup zone and found some success with it of late with their man-to-man defense, but overall, the defensive end has been a struggle.
In the first half, West Virginia struggled to make the right rotations and to consistently force both players and the ball where they wanted them to go.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats came out aggressive on that end and tried to dictate play from the jump with their defense even while their shots weren’t falling.
But things shifted as the Mountaineers pulled away by outscoring the visitors 39-21 in the second half.
“In the second half we picked it up. Got some stops and stretched the game out a little bit. It’s one of a few really well-rounded defensive performances for us,” McNeil said.
A big part of that success was focusing on the engine for the Wildcats in the lone senior Mike McGuirl. After he was able to score six points in the first half on two big momentum shifting threes, the Mountaineers held him to only one field goal in the second on six attempts and force three turnovers.
With freshman guard Nijel Pack out of the game, West Virginia was able to negate the impact that McGuirl could have on the game and essentially cut the head off the snake for Kansas State.
It’s the type of defensive performance, albeit against a team that has struggled this year, that inspires confidence moving forward for this Mountaineers basketball team. Things have started to turn over the past several games, but is it the start of possibly something special that could make this a compete team on both ends of the floor? That remains to be seen, but it’s something not far from the player’s minds.
“Defensively we were just shoring up a few things which is Huggs philosophy. We get that down; this is a national championship team. I don’t think anybody is shying away from that statement anymore. This isn’t pre-season, this is a top ten team in the country,” junior guard Jordan McCabe said.
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