Tough stretches happen in college basketball, it’s the nature of the sport, that was no different with this young West Virginia club during the doldrums of the conference schedule.
But for West Virginia it was important to be playing their best basketball at the end of the season.
Closing the regular season by winning the first true road game of the year since early January and then dispatching No. 4 Baylor at home would certainly qualify as exactly that.
It’s a rebound that some truly didn’t expect as the wheels had seemingly came off losing six of seven games in February after ascending to a No. 2 overall projected seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Instead, the free fall had dropped the overall record to 19-10 with zero momentum. That’s the funny thing about momentum though, it can sometimes shift in the blink of an eye and this Mountaineers basketball team took control of their own destiny and finished this past week on their own terms.
It wasn’t easy, as in both games against Iowa State and Baylor, they were forced to battle back after giving away leads – something that this club didn’t show the ability to do during its losing streak.
“We hadn’t been a very good team playing from behind and we blow the lead at Iowa State and come back and we lost the lead here today and came back and I think that shows some toughness,” head coach Bob Huggins said of his team.
So what caused the turnaround?
“We played with a lot more enthusiasm. We had a lot more bounce in our step. Sometimes you realize if you put your head down it’s a lot easier to put it down then to get it back up,” Huggins said. “We finally just got our heads up and played with enthusiasm.”
The turnaround was engineered in practice as the Mountaineers took ownership for their shortcomings and put together some of their best efforts in that department since early in the season. Players were engaged, enthusiastic and had bounce in their steps signifying the fight was still there.
On the floor, West Virginia was physical, relied on its defense and rebounded the basketball – you know the time tested recipe for success with Huggins’ clubs.
You can’t control everything but one item that definitely falls under that umbrella is effort and that was something that the program had been lacking on a consistent basis.
“It shouldn’t be a grind; you should look forward to coming to practice. It’s a great time to get better and they did that this week. They did that before the Iowa State game because they were enthusiastic, they had a little bounce in their step and they were attentive,” Huggins said.
Things didn’t start as well as it could against Baylor, trailing 9-0 before they could blink but a 19-2 run of their own allowed the Mountaineers to move out front. That lead would eventually be squandered, but a sign of the maturation of this club is that they didn’t panic and were able to close the game.
West Virginia now sits at No. 17 in the NET ranking and is projected anywhere from a No. 5 to a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament depending on the matrix you look at.
One thing that isn’t in doubt is the program will step into the Big 12 Tournament as the No. 6 overall seed in a revenge game against Oklahoma which has essentially humiliated the Mountaineers in the first two meetings.
Now the games matter more than ever as another loss ends the hopes of any tournament run either in the league or the larger event. That means capturing that momentum when it matters most.
“I thought that was our best basketball. It’s better we peak later in the season because now it’s win or go home,” senior guard Jermaine Haley said.
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