Huggins: 'We'll Be a Better Team Playing Texas This Time'

Early on in conference play, the Mountaineers struggled to do much of anything right. They were turning the ball over at an alarming rate, missing free throws, missing easy shots at the rim, and had several breakdowns defensively.

That has seemingly all come to an end as West Virginia has caught fire recently winning four of its last five games with its only loss coming to TCU on the road by four.

"I think after a while they've kind of taken it to heart," WVU head coach Bob Huggins said following the win over No. 11 Iowa State. "I've been really honest with them in that we put ourselves in a heck of a hole because we didn't make one, two-footers and we didn't make free throws. We had chances to win at least three or four more games if we had just made free throws or taken better care of the ball. We just didn't man up and do what we needed to do, but we're manning up pretty good right now."

On Saturday, the Mountaineers will begin a very challenging two-game, three-day road trip against the Texas Longhorns, which is one of the teams that Huggins believes they could've beat. They led the Longhorns at the half but fell apart defensively in the second half allowing 43 points and turned it over a total of 20 times on the night.

Since that game, WVU has done a much better job of taking care of the ball, averaging 12.4 turnovers/game and has improved drastically at the free throw line shooting 115/141 (82%) during that stretch. Their effort, enthusiasm, intensity, rotations, and communication defensively is night and day from what it was. Is there still room for improvement? Of course. But the progress they have made has positioned them to have the capability of handling this road trip and potentially coming away with at least one key win.

"We'll be a better team playing Texas this time than we were the first time we played 'em," Huggins said. "I mean, we'll see how that shakes out, but we will be a better team playing them this time."

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