WVU has to find a way to close games down stretch run

From the first game of the year against Buffalo, it’s been a season defined more by what didn’t happen than what did on the basketball court. And at 10-13 it’s easy to see that things could be quite different.

“You look at our record and you think that’s a bad team but we’re not as bad as our record shows. We should be a much better team,” he said.

It’s not that the Mountaineers haven’t been in position to have a better record because they certainly have but time and time again they’ve shown an ability not to close down the stretch.

There are quite a few examples to choose from to support that.

West Virginia opened the season by blowing a 10-pont lead over the final 4:43 of regulation to eventually fall to the Bulls in overtime. The Mountaineers were outscored 30-15 down that stretch showing an inability to close the game from the foul line or get a stop on the defensive end.

Then to open Big 12 Conference play, the Mountaineers turned the ball over 22 times resulting in 27 points for Texas Tech while missing 14 free throws in the process. That resulted in a three-point loss to the Red Raiders in a game that could have easily been very different.

“We turned it over 22 times, we shoot 50-percent from the foul line and we lose by three. If we correct either one of those we’re 1-0 in the league at the time,” Huggins said.

Add to those a game where the Mountaineers blew a 21-point lead against Kansas State, 17 of that evaporated in a four-minute span and you can see why Huggins hasn’t quite thrown in the towel on this team. They’ve been close, but close won’t cut it and sometimes you have to manufacture your own luck.

“It’s been a year of I guess near misses,” he said.

So instead of having several Big 12 wins in the pocket, West Virginia faces the daunting task of being 2-8 in the league with only eight regular season games remaining. That starts tonight against Texas, a team that the Mountaineers also battled close but let the game slip away late.

“You look at the games that we could a, should a won and all the sudden you look and say we’ve got five or six wins now we’re in the middle of this thing,” Huggins said. “We just have not closed games.”

Turnovers, missed free throws and inconsistency have been the biggest culprits for the slide but there is always the chance to right the ship.

And what makes the Big 12 so intimidating is perhaps the beauty of the league in that the Mountaineers have a chance to make things right if they can get out of their own way. Easier said than done at this stage of the season but there is always the hope that things can turn around.

“When you look at the league and how many games there are there is opportunities there but we’ve got to win. We can’t keep giving games away.,” he said.

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