Taz Sherman Emerging As A Star for WVU
West Virginia guard Taz Sherman seemed to come into his own in the Mountaineers’ 70-65 victory over Iowa State on Friday night in Morgantown.
With just 18 seconds left and WVU up by one, Sherman forced a turnover on an out of bounds play that gave WVU possession. After sinking a pair of free throws, Sherman gave the Mountaineers a bit of security in what had been a touch-and-go game throughout.
WVU forward Derek Culver, who recorded a double-double with 18 points and 12 rebounds, approached Sherman and told him that he would be the reason the Mountaineers would win the game.
“Believe it or not, I told Taz he was going to be the reason we ended up winning this game,” Culver said following the victory. “Taz, he’s fast, he’s strong but he also can shoot the ball and is very skilled.”
Sherman has improved tremendously since the 2019-20 season. Now averaging 22.1 minutes per game, his time on the floor has nearly doubled since last season. Both his field goal and 3-point shooting percentages have increased by approximately 10-percent a piece. He is not shooting 47.1% from the field and 46.2% from beyond the arc. Averaging 12.1 points per game, Sherman’s scoring has more than doubled since last season.
Sherman, who is the Mountaineers’ strongest 3-point shooter, struggled to produce on the offensive end against Iowa State. He sunk only 2 of 7 from the field and missed both of his 3-point attempts. Sherman logged 10 points, however 6 of those points were the product of free throws.
“Me missing shots doesn’t really change my teammates positivity toward me,” Sherman said. “They always encourage me to keep shooting ... Huggs and everybody in the organization tells me to keep putting it up. You can miss five, six or seven but keep going because once I start hitting, it opens up a lot of areas.”
Sherman recounted the moment Culver approached him with encouragement.
“DC was just telling me ‘You are going to come back in this game and make a play.’ He didn’t say offense or defense, but just that at the end of the game you are going to be in and make a play. I did that.”
When his shots would not sink, Sherman focused on his defensive effort in order to save the game.
“I was trying to make a play on the defensive end because my offense wasn’t really there today. I wanted to make an impact on the game,” he said.
“The rest of my teammates did a good job of denying the man from the ball,” Sherman said. “I was counting down in my head .... 1, 2, 3, 4 ... by the time I got to 3, I said, ‘OK, he has to make this pass’ so I kind of broke on it. When I tried to steal it, I tried to hit the ball toward him a little bit and it fortunately for us went off him.”
Ultimately, Sherman’s defensive play in the final seconds of the game eliminated any chatter surrounding his sub-par performance in the frontcourt.
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