West Virginia doesn’t have time to think what could have been.
Senior forward Tucker DeVries is now officially out for the year after it was announced that he was undergoing shoulder surgery, while guard Jayden Stone has yet to suit up this year after an injury in the preseason.
That thinned out an already thin rotation for the Mountaineers even further.
In the 65-60 road loss to TCU, West Virginia played a total of eight players with senior guard Javon Small playing all but three minutes in the game. But that means those around him have got to continue to elevate their play.
“We play with the guys we’ve got. That’s just part of it,” head coach Darian DeVries said. “Guys are out there competing and that’s what we roll with.”
That’s the only approach that West Virginia can take because the rest of the Big 12 doesn’t care. It’s next man up and that means finding ways to win even when you aren’t at full strength.
The margin for error was already small for the Mountaineers when it comes to finding ways to win games and that certainly hasn’t changed in league play. West Virginia has to play connected defense and rebound the basketball to set up what they can do on the opposite end of the floor.
Things started well for West Virginia against the Horned Frogs, but lapses allowed a double-digit first-half lead to slip away and forced the Mountaineers to rally from their own double-digit deficit in the second half. West Virginia would tie the game, but couldn’t quite get over the hump.
“When we got back into it our defense started playing like it did at the start of the game,” DeVries said. “Finally getting some stops.”
West Virginia now sits at 14-8 overall and 5-6 in the Big 12 with the program losing four of their last five showcasing the difficulty of the league. Up next is a critical home game with Utah before hosting BYU with a chance to pick up some major momentum over the final seven.
But it won’t be easy and DeVries understands that.
“It’s very tough, competitive. Every night is a battle and tonight was no different,” DeVries said. “Every single game it’s 40 minutes of who can withstand it.”
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