WVU looks to make opponents uncomfortable with pressure

Senior guard Tarik Phillip already knows that when it comes to the West Virginia pressure it’s just a different animal than most teams are accustomed to.

“I play against it in practice so I kind of know,” he added.

Head coach Bob Huggins referred to the constant pressure that the Mountaineers apply as “uncomfortable,” in large part because it’s not something that is seen often. Baylor can attest to that as the Bears were blitzed into a total of 29 turnovers on the way to a 21-point loss in Morgantown.

The Bears entered the game No. 1 in the nation, but from the early minutes it was apparent that the West Virginia pressure was creating havoc not only getting the ball past half court but speeding Baylor up once they crossed the timeline. That was a recipe for disaster for the visitors.

“They’ve gotten a lot more effective with it. They make you feel uneasy, uncomfortable,” head coach Scott Drew said. “If you had said before the game we were going to have 29 turnovers I wouldn’t have believed you, even knowing how good their pressure is. They just took us out of everything.”

Out of the 29 Baylor turnovers, 15 of those were steals, as each player that logged at least 20-minutes for Baylor had at least three turnovers each.

Some of that was after the Bears broke the press, but the past-pace of the game had taken them out of their element and they were called for traveling and other self-inflicted mistakes due to the frantic nature that the Mountaineers make teams play in games.

“Some players never have even seen this type of pressure before. The point guard was a little flustered because he hadn’t seen that kind of pressure before,” Phillip said. “You can see who’s comfortable handling the ball in the pressure early in the game.”

But what’s the secret?

Assistant coach Larry Harrison had the scout on the Bears and did an excellent job preparing the Mountaineers for what they would see out of Baylor but it was much more simple than that.

“A lot of it is energy and concentration,” Huggins said. “We have the ability.”

The Mountaineers play with relentless ball pressure both in the full court and half court, and did an excellent job making rotations to make things difficult on the Bears. But feeding off the energy of the sold out crowd, West Virginia had more bounce in their step than normal.

That made all the difference in the world.

“We were just playing hard. Everybody was excited, everybody was up and we just played like we knew we could,” senior forward Nathan Adrian said.

That proved to be highly effective with getting the Mountaineers in transition so they did not have to crack the Baylor zone. Overall, West Virginia recorded 29 points in the game and unlike a season ago the Mountaineers aren’t giving the ball right back with turnovers of their own.

That has been a major difference in the overall success of the pressure defense.

“We got a lot of points in transition. We knew if we put pressure on them and rotated we could turn them over,” sophomore forward Esa Ahmad said.

Continuing that style of play will be key for the Mountaineers moving ahead as they look to make each and every team on the schedule uncomfortable.

“We go into every game thinking we can turn teams over,” Adrian said.