In the biggest game of the season so far for West Virginia, the Mountaineers’ offense was nowhere to be found.
The fourth-rated Mountaineers couldn’t keep up with the fifth-rated Wildcats’ offense in the 82-75 loss Monday night.
The Mountaineers shot just 41 percent, missing a slew of open shots. Villanova, on the other hand, shot 63 percent and quieted a much-criticized Coliseum crowd on its best behavior.
The Mountaineers just didn’t do what they needed to do offensively to beat Villanova.
The Mountaineers aren’t ready to breakout on offense – at least, not against Wildcats.
Heading into the season, WVU head coach Bob Huggins knew his team would have to be better offensively if it wanted to live up to the hype of a top 10 preseason ranking.
The Mountaineers were losing their second-leading scorer Alex Ruoff, but Huggins expected to be better on offense mainly because Truck Bryant, Devin Ebanks and Kevin Jones were heading into their sophomore seasons.
But it’s already February, and the Mountaineers can’t hit an open three when it counts. They can’t consistently make a free throw, either.
So far this season, only Da’Sean Butler has made more than 35 3-pointers.
In addition, no Mountaineer has a free-throw shooting percentage better than Butler’s 79.2 percent (unless you count Jonnie West, who is a perfect 2-of-2).
Those aren’t the type of numbers that will win close games.
The Mountaineers are shooting just 1.8 points more per game this season than they did last year. That’s with a year under those three freshmens’ belts.
In big games, the WVU offense has been pitiful.
Against Purdue on New Year’s Day, a tired-legged team struggled in nearly all facets offensively – leading to a 62-point output.
Against Notre Dame, the Mountaineers averaged just 68 as well. Syracuse held the Mountaineers to 71 points in a losing effort.
The same situation occurred Monday against Villanova.
In the first half, WVU shot 35.7 percent from the field including a weak 20 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.
In the second half, the Mountaineers went through a four-minute scoreless stretch filled with awful offensive execution, which in turn cost them the game.
Though Villanova wasn’t absolutely shooting the lights out, the Wildcats were either knocking down a crucial shot or hitting their free throws.
WVU wasn’t – and that was the difference.
The offense under Truck Bryant and Joe Mazzulla looked shaky. After standing stationary for nearly 10 to 15 seconds each time down the court, when the shot clock ran down, WVU tried to find Da’Sean Butler – who just didn’t have the same success as he did in his 33-point effort against St. John’s Saturday.
It just didn’t work – and WVU couldn’t fix its problems during the game.
So it lost, but not because Villanova was shooting the lights out but because the Mountaineers were shooting like something was going to hit them.
If the Mountaineers are going to be able to compete with the top teams in the country this season and in years down the road, they’re going to have to improve on offense.
WVU will face Villanova again this season. Maybe next time the Mountaineers will be ready.
They weren’t Monday.
As a side note, I would like to commend the West Virginia student section for proving to the country the section is not unruly, and the Pitt game was an uncommon circumstance.
While the situation has definitely been blown out of proportion across the country and by West Virginia University, this performance should quiet it considerably. It should, because WVU fans proved there is no story anymore.
You could’ve come out and acted like crazy fools, but you didn’t. For that, you should be commended. In the second half, it was an effort fit for a top five, nationally televised matchup.
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