Initial Thoughts: A Fool's Gold Start for West Virginia at Texas Tech

Rapid takeaways from West Virginia's loss in Lubbock.

Feb 15, 2025; Waco, Texas, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries calls a play against the Baylor Bears during the first half at Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Chris Jones-Imagn Images | Chris Jones-Imagn Images

West Virginia fell to No. 9 Texas Tech on the road Saturday afternoon, 73-51, dropping to 16-11 (7-9) on the season.

Here are a few of my takeaways from this afternoon's game.

A tale of two halves

After a well-connected defensive effort in the first half, WVU collapsed on that end of the floor in the opening minutes of the second half. Texas Tech did whatever it wanted to and backed WVU's big deep into the paint with ease. Rotations were slow, and guards were getting beat off the dribble left and right. Offensively, they went into that long drought that happens every game and could never shake out of it.

Didn't take advantage early

Texas Tech was all out of sorts offensively in the first fifteen minutes or so of the game, but WVU failed to really push the lead out. They did get it out to nine, but that was quickly erased by a 5-0 run by the Red Raiders, which then turned into an extended run where they took the lead. When you have a really good team lacking confidence early on, you must take full advantage of it and make some buckets to back them into a corner.

Javon Small couldn't get going

The Mountaineers' star guard didn't make his first field goal until about the 16-minute mark of the second half. Amani Hansberry carried much of the workload offensively, which was critical in the early going, but for Small to be essentially taken out of the game, in my opinion, was one of the biggest reasons why Tech was able to open things up.

Threes from guys who shouldn't be putting them up

Although he made one, Sencire Harris chucked up three triples on the day - a guy that shot 5/46 (10%) from three coming into the game. KJ Tenner was 4/21 (19%) coming in and put two up. Toby Okani, although a little bit better at 30%, took some threes where he had an open lane to the basket but passed it up for the long ball. While a handful of shots wouldn't have changed the outcome, it certainly didn't help. You need the right guys to be taking those attempts.

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