West Virginia simply didn’t do what they needed to do in order to knock off Arizona in any area of the game.
The Mountaineers had their lowest scoring output of the season with just 56 and allowed the Wildcats to shoot 51-percent from the floor. The 39 points that Arizona put up in the first half matched the total of the previous two games against Kansas and Oklahoma State combined.
“I just didn’t think we were as physical and aggressive as we have been and what’s helped us be successful to this point of the season,” head coach Darian DeVries said. “Our formula is the same.”
West Virginia has to play a certain way to be successful, especially as the injuries on the roster continue to mount, and that leaves a small margin for error. And if the team deviates from that formula at all if often doesn’t lead to the results that the Mountaineers want to see.
On the offensive end, the Wildcats did a good job disrupting what West Virginia was trying to do, and their offense dictated the pace of the game. The Mountaineers gave up a total of 36 points in the paint.
“They had us on the defensive end. They just had us in a lot of different ways. When we countered with something, they were able to make a quick adjustment, and like I said, we just couldn't keep them out of the paint tonight, and they were just living in there, and that's a tough way to play defense.” DeVries said.
The good news is that this was just one of 20 games in the Big 12 Conference and in a league as challenging as this one it’s simply going to happen sometimes. The key is how the Mountaineers bounce back and not letting this one game become the start of a series of poor performances.
“You can’t let this one impact the next one and you have to move on pretty quickly, and our guys will do that,” DeVries said.
Up next for West Virginia is a road trip to Colorado and the Mountaineers shifted their focus on the Buffaloes Thursday after taking a day off following the home loss to the Wildcats.
There isn’t time to look back at what unfolded because the grind of the Big 12 schedule comes fast.
“I just feel like we're not going to panic. We're going to learn from our mistakes back in the film room, and we're going to go back to the drawing board and go back to the team that we used to be in games before,” senior forward Toby Okani said.
“We’re just onto the next page. We’re going to take it to Colorado and keep building as a team and not look back at what happened,” sophomore guard Sencire Harris added.
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