Bob Huggins: “We Just got to Get Better."
Indianapolis - The No. 11 West Virginia Mountaineers (3-1) gave it all they got and controlled most of the game, but mistakes escalated in the latter part of the second half, and the No. 1 Gonzaga (3-0) Bulldogs toppled the Mountaineers 87-82 at the Jimmy V Classic inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
"We got a lot of work to do. We did an extremely poor job of guarding ball screens. We fell asleep too many times," said West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins. "The turning point of the game was probably when we rebounded it twice - they knocked the ball out of our hands, maintained possession, and scored, instead of putting the ball away like we work on. We made some careless errors that came back to bite us."
It was a battle from the outset as the West Virginia big men Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe were working down low, and Deuce McBride hit a pair of threes as the Mountaineers built a six-point lead near the midway point of the first half.
Gonzaga came back and tied the game in with their prolific transition game as Corey Kispert euro stepped past Sean McNeil, running his elbow across McNeil’s forehead, for the layup as the foul went against McNeil.
“I don’t remember a guy getting hit, laying on the floor bleeding and getting a foul called on him,” said Huggins. “I’d have to think long and hard as to the last time I ever saw that happen.”
“Sean gets hit in the head, he’ll probably need eight to 12 stitches, and then the foul was on him. So, you know, we didn’t have him, and that hurts us, and then he wasn’t the same. He doesn’t miss that many shots - He missed a bunch of shots. He got whacked in the head pretty good.”
McNeil finished the game 1-9 from the field, with his only bucket coming in the second half.
The Bulldogs orchestrated a 9-0 run to take a 20-17 lead before McBride hit a fadeaway jumper from the baseline to end the run.
Gonzaga point guard Jalen Suggs came into the evening averaging 18.0 points per game. He went down near the seven-minute mark, and the Mountaineers took advantage and went on an 11-3 run and taking an eight-point lead with 4:22 left in the half.
Joel Ayayi drilled a three with under a minute remaining to get the Bulldogs within three, but Deuce hit a jumper to push the Mountaineer lead to five right before the half.
Gonzaga came out of the half firing on all cylinders getting three straight easy buckets before Taz Sherman ended the spurt with a jumper off the left wing.
However, the Bulldogs continued to get easy buckets and built a four-point lead until Sherman ended another quick run with a three, but the Bulldogs' momentum continued to build.
Then, West Virginia forwards Oscar Tshiebwe, Gabe Osabuohien, and Derek Culver’s foul count started to mount up, and naturally, the Mountaineers struggled on both ends of the floor.
Tshiebwe and Osabuohien both would foul out of the game.
“The dumb ones (fouls) are what kills us, and we made dumb ones,” said Huggins. “Oscar got his fourth or fifth, I think it was fifth, he didn’t run the floor. And all we talked about was ‘run the floor, run the floor, run the floor,’ and he didn’t run the floor in transition; guy got behind him, and he tried to catch him and fouled him. That’s his fifth; he’s out. Gabe tried to steal the ball and reached in and fouled the guy. They know better than that. If you were to ask them today, they would say, “Oh yeah, I know better than that.” I dunno, heat of the game.”
The Gonzaga offense took advantage in transition, back cuts, screens and made it look easy, registering 60 points in the paint.
“It was penetration off-ball screens. We got back cut five or six times, which is – see to me, that’s inexcusable. When you're told and told and told and told over and over and over again, and you work on it over and over again, you shouldn’t get back cut. Particularly, on an open side, when a guy is dribbling at you, you should know it’s coming. Actually, you ought to steal the ball. That’s what we used to do, and then they stopped doing that. So, we just got work to do, that’s all. I mean, it’s not like a veteran-laden team; we’re playing a lot of young guys.”
“A lot of that was ball screens, and we’re going to have to change our ball screen defense because these guys aren’t capable of doing what other guys did. So, that’s part of it. Figure out what guys can do without giving them a crutch. You try to put them in positions where they can be successful,” added Huggins.
Despite it all, the Mountaineers continued to stay within a possession or two until Taz Sherman drove to the basket and was called for a charge that everybody but the official saw as a block. Kispert hit a deep three to put Gonzaga up seven on the following possession that seemingly took the air of the Mountaineers.
West Virginia did get back within three following a jumper from freshman Isaiah Cottrell, who scores six points in nine second-half minutes, but the Mountaineer mistakes continued to mount, and the Bulldogs pulled away and survived 87-82.
“I detest losing,” said Huggins. “It’s not that I don’t like it; I detest it. I thought we were prepared to win. We just didn’t do what we needed to do… We didn’t run the floor. We didn’t take care of the ball. I can sit here and give you 50 reasons or 50 things that we shouldn’t have done, but we did. We’ve got to fix it – they’ve got to fix it. I can tell them and show them how to fix it – the need to fix it, and I think they will.
“We just got to get better, man. It's early in the year, understandable, but we got to fix some things.”
West Virginia looks to bounce back as they travel to Washington D.C. to face a familiar old Big East rival the Georgetown Hoyas at 4:30 pm EST on FS1.
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