West Virginia needs faster start, better effort on road
West Virginia ran into a buzz saw at Texas, but they didn’t do much to help themselves either.
The Mountaineers fell behind 18-7 early and were never able to recover as the Longhorns finished the game shooting 51-percent from the floor and were well over 60-percent for most of the game.
Texas played with a sense of desperation from the start and after losing three of four their backs were against the wall in many respects and it showed on the floor.
That wasn’t the case with West Virginia.
“I didn’t have our guys ready to play. That’s on me. I’ll get with our coaching staff and figure out what we can do differently,” head coach Josh Eilert said.
The shots were falling for the Longhorns, but the Mountaineers didn’t help themselves on the defensive end with confusion in pick-and-roll coverage coupled with poor closeouts. And the frustrating part is that Texas didn’t really do anything different than what they had shown on film; it was just an example of one team executing at a high level while another struggled.
Related: West Virginia falls behind early, blown out 94-58 by Texas
“Our closeouts weren’t very good,” Eilert said.
The Longhorns diced up the West Virginia defense with 28 assists on 36 made baskets, as two different players finished with more assists than the entire Mountaineers team with just 6.
The end result was a 94-58 loss in a game where West Virginia was largely uncompetitive given the gap and is another frustrating result in a season full of challenges on the road. This team is now 0-9 away from Morgantown and will have to quickly bounce back if they want to change that against TCU.
That contest is set for 8 p.m. Monday night and it’s going to take a much better effort all around if the Mountaineers want to try to snap their struggles on the road.
“The best teams don’t carry one loss into two. They quickly fix the issues and bounce back. In this league if you get down on yourself there are no layups in this league,” Eilert said. “You have to be ready to play each and every night. Trying to find out how to win on the road is the challenging part.”
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