WVU set for Big 12 Tournament, third meeting with Baylor
It’s said it’s hard to beat a team three times in a season in college basketball.
Well, West Virginia is going to put that theory to the test.
Fresh off a disappointing finish on the road at Texas, the No. 3 seed Mountaineers will enter the Big 12 Conference Tournament with a matchup against the No. 6 seed Baylor Bears.
It will be the third time that the two teams have squared off this year, with West Virginia surviving a 57-54 affair in Morgantown then controlling the game from start to finish in Waco beating the Bears 71-60. That second game was one that featured two teams that were desperate to win.
“Just two teams wanting to win,” head coach Bob Huggins said.
This third matchup is set for 9 p.m. Thursday night and will pit Huggins’ club against a Baylor team that is still desperately scratching and clawing for an NCAA Tournament bid. It will be a scene much like what the Mountaineers walked into against that shorthanded Texas club last weekend.
“I think Scott (Drew) has done a terrific job first. They were struggling and he saw a way to get them back to where they’re playing extremely well right now,” Huggins said.
The Bears present issues on both ends of the floor and despite the 2-0 mark against them this season, that won’t matter coming into this game.
“They can score the ball, they have multiple guys that are capable of going for 20 points on a given night and it’s hard to play against that zone,” Huggins added.
As for matchup problems, Baylor relies on its trademark zone defense with its length to create issues on the defensive end for teams and held the Mountaineers to 31-percent in the first meeting. In the second, West Virginia was able to make shots, which has been a theme for this club to have success.
It sounds obvious enough, but it keeps coming back to making shots.
“They’re not going to make them all, nobody makes them all but you have to make them at times when you need them,” Huggins said.
That didn’t happen against Texas and the inconsistency of this team continued to shine through at times after putting together a strong effort at home against Texas Tech the Mountaineers couldn’t lock up the No. 2 seed and eventually fell down the ladder a spot.
“As the season winds down and there is seemingly so much more at stake you have to make open shots,” Huggins said. “We had open shots at Texas, we didn’t make them.”
Effort on the defensive end has been an issue as well and that wasn’t the case in the last meeting with Baylor, the Mountaineers held the Bears to 33-percent from the floor when they came into the game shooting close to 50-percent as a team. West Virginia also blocked 13 shots, one short of the school record, while forcing a total of 14 turnovers with 12 of those in the first half.
It’s something that has been a trademark of the Mountaineers and when asked about what he has seen out of West Virginia of late, Baylor’s head coach Drew didn’t have to think long.
“Same thing I always see out of them. Causing a lot of turnovers, really getting after it defensively. They’ve got the best perimeter defender in the country in Jevon Carter and arguably the best interior defender in Sagaba Konate,” he said. “So it makes it real tough on the defensive end and they’re very good when they cause turnovers and get in transition.”
West Virginia scored 22 points off turnovers in the last meeting against Baylor.
Senior guard Carter was selected as the league’s defensive player of the year, while Konate was tabbed on the all-defensive team alongside of him. It’s the fourth straight year that Carter has made the team.
“I think it starts with his work ethic. He has a great, great work ethic. He has great feet, he’s got very quick hands and he’s got a great desire to guard,” Huggins said of Carter. “He takes a lot of pride in wanting to defend.”
The Big 12 Tournament figures to be one of the most competitive in the entire country with nine of its ten teams realistically having a shot at the NCAA Tournament. Huggins has gone on record multiple times saying this is the most difficult league he has tried to navigate and affirmed that.
“There is no bottom in this league, there is no bottom in coaching,” he said.
