Final Thoughts: West Virginia Played Like a National Contender

The No. 11 West Virginia Mountaineers laid an 87-71 beatdown on the No. 19 Richmond Spiders Sunday afternoon.

There was some concern heading into the against Richmond. On Friday, the Mountaineers didn’t play very well in the 12-point win over North Texas, and they were playing their seventh game in 18 days with five of those games on the road. Yet, they came out and played like a national contender.

This wasn't a matter of Richmond having an off night. They started the game playing well and never really played poorly. It was just more the Mountaineers playing up to their potential. They were running their offense at a high level and getting some straight-line drives to the basket. However, that did lead to Bob Huggins finding a seat for Deuce McBride on the bench for a little while.

Jordan McCabe came in and managed the offense well and hit a pair of threes to extend West Virginia’s lead to seven before McBride came back out on to the floor with just under nine minutes to play in the first half and he went off. He obviously took it personally and ripped 14 of 16 half points to close out the half by attacking the basket and picking his spots on the floor. He did whatever he wanted.

Meanwhile, West Virginia switched up their defense and to a ¾ court press with Emmitt Matthews Jr at the top of the defense, chasing the ball and trapping along the way. As a result, it sped up the Spiders' offense and threw them off their game and, at times, made one too many extra passes, and the quickness of the Mountaineers got into the passing lanes for deflections and steals.

The defense led to runs, but the offense was clicking, and everybody was hitting shots. The Mountaineers shot 66.7% from the floor, including going 6-9 from behind the arc in the first half, and held a 22-point advantage at the break.

They came out with the same energy to start the second half and held a 30-point lead within the first three minutes of action, and that is a big step forward from last season. They’ve been great at closing out games despite, at times, not playing well. But to come out with the same intensity, they played within the first half with a 22-point lead shows how much this team has grown in just a year. And, when is the last time that happened against a quality opponent?

With the game well in control, Huggins made a mass substitution and started filtering his first year players Jalen Bridges, Isaiah Cottrell, and Kedrian Johnson. They played like first year players that haven’t seen a lot of action, although Cottrell has had his moments in the early portion of this season.

The starters rotated back in once Richmond trimmed the deficit to under 20 as West Virginia comfortably won 87-71.

Everybody played well, but along with Deuce McBride leading all scorers with 20 points, five assists, and three steals, Oscar Tshiebwe deserves mention. He has struggled to start the season, but he started to look like his old self on Sunday. He finished with 12 points and five rebounds. I think this is the game that gets him going, and we start seeing him develop.

I don’t remember West Virginia playing that well against a good veteran top 25 team. Yes, they’ve won big games against better teams, but I’ll refer back to coming out of halftime and building onto their lead. I’ve definitely seen West Virginia blow big second half leads in the past due to coming out of the break with a lackadaisical attitude and getting beat; they came out with a killer instinct. That’s different, and hopefully, it carries on throughout the season.

It was a great win, but they’ll have to remain focused because the conference opener is Friday against Iowa State inside the WVU Coliseum at 9:00 pm EST on ESPNU.

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