PREVIEW: West Virginia Looks to end Losing Streak Against Sooners
The West Virginia Mountaineers (13-5, 2-4) host the Oklahoma Sooners Tuesday night with the tip-off wet for eight o'clock and the interconference battle will be broadcasting on ESPN2.
The Sooners are without long-time head coach Lon Kruger who announced his retirement following the 2021-22 season and then brought Loyola-Chicago's Porter Moser to become Oklahoma's 15th head coach in program history.
He brings a solid resume to the Big 12 Conference after making the Ramblers a household name in March. Over the previous four seasons at Loyola-Chicago, the program claimed three regular-season Missouri Valley Conference titles, won six NCAA tournament games, two Sweet 16 appearances, and a run to the 2018 Final Four, compiling a 99-36 overall record in 10 seasons.
Porter takes over a program that had just five returning to players, Elijah Harkless, Umoja Gibson, Rick Issanza, Jalen Hill and Blake Seacat.
"He's done a great job putting a team together. They had a chance to beat Kansas. They had a chance to beat Baylor. Actually, they led both of them late in the game. He's done a terrific job with them," said West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins.
"They run great offense. He runs a variation of a lot of really good stuff from a lot of really good coaches," added Huggins. "I think his background with Rick Majerus probably has helped him. They're great at back-cutting you. They do a great job of opening up driving lanes so they can drive it at the rim. I really like their team."
Oklahoma ranks 12th nationally in field goal percentage at 49.3%, third in the scoring defense, holding opponents to 62.5 points per game, and is fourth in the Big 12 in three-pointers made.
Feb 13, 2021; Morgantown, West Virginia, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers guard Sean McNeil (22) drives and shoots against Oklahoma Sooners guard Elijah Harkless (24) during overtime at WVU Coliseum.
Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports
Eastern Washington senior transfer Tanner Groves was named the 2020-21 Big Sky Player of the Year, capping off his junior campaign with a career-high 35 points in the 93-84 opening-round loss to Kansas in the 2021 NCAA tournament. The six-foot-ten senior averages 12.7 points and 5.9 rebounds per game but has only averaged seven points per game in his last four outings (Texas, TCU, Kansas and Baylor). Additionally, he is third on the team in three-pointers made with 21.
Umoja Gibson is the Sooners' returning leading scorer, registering 9.1 ppg a season ago, including hitting a season-high 29-points against the Mountaineers in Norman and 19 points in the return trip to Morgantown. The senior guard is averaging 12.4 ppg with most of his production coming from behind the arc, putting up a league-leading 128 three-point attempts, ranking third in three made (48) and fourth in three-point percentage (37.5%).
Elijah Harkless is averaging 9.9 points per game while forward 9.8 ppg and a team-leading 6.3 rpg.
The Sooners are looking to end a four-game losing streak, with the losses coming on the road to Texas and TCU and at home to Kansas and Baylor, while West Virginia is seeking to end a three-game skid, dropping games at Kansas, Baylor and at Texas Tech, and a four-game losing streak to Oklahoma.
The Sooners are preparing a rough and rugged Mountaineer defense and a hostile WVU Coliseum.
We just put blaring noise in our arena and took the scout team pressing and where I couldn't call a timeout and they had to handle the press. I expect them to come up in us," said Oklahoma head coach Porter Moses. "We put blaring noise in the arena to where they had to communicate on offense, communicate on defense, flying at you, being physical and that's how we prepped for West Virginia."
West Virginia is 9-14 all-time versus the Sooners, including dropping five of the six meetings.
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