West Virginia didn’t win the Baylor game, but the Mountaineers did a lot of things that if they carried them over could help them down the stretch run of the season.
With six regular-season games remaining, the focus for West Virginia will be on trying to snap a current streak that has seen them drop six of their past eight games.
Not all of those losses have been created equal and the most recent against the Bears certainly fits that mold as one that the Mountaineers did a lot of things right outside winning the game.
West Virginia held Baylor to just 39-percent from the floor and 23-percent from three as the defense played the type of tough-nosed trademark style that head coach Darian DeVries wants out of his team. It was a massive bounce back after that end of the floor was the undoing for the Mountaineers in the previous game against BYU where the Cougars shot 55-percent in the second half.
That certainly wasn’t the case against the Bears.
“Guarding our tails off. We really dug in defensively, did some good things and made life hard for them,” DeVries said. “Even though they shot it better in the second half, we guarded about as well as we could. They just made a late clock or tough play at times. It’s unfortunate for us.”
There are definitely games on the schedule where West Virginia hasn’t played as hard or has had some disappointing results, but this game was the exact opposite.
“Our guys really competed. They played their tails off and put us in position to win the game and certainly had some opportunities,” DeVries said.
West Virginia also kept the Bears off the glass, losing just 40-36 and allowing just 2 second chance points despite coming into the game as one of the best offensive-rebounding teams in the country.
“I thought our guys really battled,” DeVries said.
On the offensive end, West Virginia shot 40-percent from the field and made more field goals (26-21) and three pointers (8-5) than the Bears. The Mountaineers also did a good job sharing the basketball and getting a number of open looks with what they did on that end especially in the second half.
Even down the stretch West Virginia had several open looks at critical times but couldn’t get the shot down in order to take control of the game.
“I just love the way we played in the second half. We were moving it and sharing it,” he said.
Overall, the Mountaineers had 17 assists on 26 made baskets and were able to get senior guard Javon Small going with 22 points and 6 assists on 16 total shot attempts. That total had been just nine in the previous two games where the Mountaineers split with Utah and BYU.
One area that must improve is keeping the opposing team off the foul line, as Baylor continued a trend of shooting 15 more than the Mountaineers. Overall, the Bears were 27-32 from the line.
West Virginia now must regroup and hope to capture some of the things that went well in this one while trying to avoid losing the games that are ahead. The Mountaineers showed good poise and kept fighting to give themselves opportunities to win the game and now must channel that.
“There's nothing that's in front of us that we still can't accomplish,” DeVries said.
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