West Virginia is coming off their first two-game losing streak of the season and now must prepare for a rematch with No. 6 Houston inside the Coliseum.
The Cougars are on a 12-game winning streak including a 70-54 win over the Mountaineers Jan. 15. That’s not the most conducive matchup in order to turn things around, but that’s where this basketball team finds itself.
Especially after games against Arizona State and Kansas State where the Mountaineers have struggled on the defensive end of the floor which has been one of the strengths of this team.
“It ultimately still is about our defense. Both of those nights we didn’t shoot it well and our defense wasn’t what it has been either. That was our main issue was those breakdowns defensively so on a night we weren’t shooting it, we couldn’t keep up,” head coach Darian DeVries said.
The Mountaineers reviewed the film of the past five games and every made basket and there were some glaring things that took place in the last two losses that simply weren’t happening in the previous games. That means that West Virginia simply has to get back to playing with fundamentals there and being more connected as the defense was too isolated at times and got spread out.
But what happened before it’s a precursor to what comes next and the message from the coaching staff has simply been to not let what has happened affect them and continue to stay with the plan and be confident.
“How do we minimize a bad shooting night?” DeVries said.
That’s a tough turnaround against any team but especially one like Houston that does such a good job on both ends of the floor. The Cougars are as good as it gets on the defensive end and play with both aggression and discipline. As of late, teams have tried to give senior guard Javon Small a ton of attention which means that West Virginia has to be ready to take advantage of that on the backside when two is brought to him or allow him to get some space off the ball.
“We get it out of there which we have that’s where some of those three-point opportunities come. Get it out there, make that one extra pass then it’s an issue of making them,” DeVries said.
Meanwhile, on offense West Virginia will have to pick and choose how to defend Houston.
In the first meeting, West Virginia attempted to play J’Wan Roberts one-on-one in the post and he was 8-10 in the first half but when the Mountaineers elected to double him the Cougars hit threes on both possessions.
“They put you in tough spots there but where you really get in trouble is live ball turnovers, offensive rebounds and kickouts. They’re elite at it so you have to minimize that,” DeVries said.
It’s made even more difficult by the fact that Houston made West Virginia pay for their mistakes by running under screens and allowing their shooters to hit open three-pointers. That’s made difficult because of how the Cougars run the offense and force defenders to sometimes make multiple decisions.
“They’re going to screen you, re-screen you and sometimes they’re going to fake a hand-off, and they’ll come back and get another one,” DeVries said. “It sounds easy just don’t do that, but they make it challenging.”
Because it’s the second meeting between the two teams, West Virginia will be able to see some of the things they did well as well as where they struggled and try to maximize what went well and minimize the bad.
But most importantly, West Virginia is going to have to try to match the aggression that the Cougars play with and how it’s a function of their offense. In those 50/50 type situations either on loose balls or rebounds, Houston is able to come up with a majority of those which forces a scramble situation and leads to kickouts.
“A very veteran team they played a lot of basketball; they don’t panic but they understand what winning is for them and they play to it,” DeVries said.
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