Three Initial Thoughts Following West Virginia's Road Loss to TCU

For just the second time this season, West Virginia has dropped consecutive games as the Mountaineers fell to TCU 60-54 on Saturday evening. The loss drops WVU to 16-11 (7-7) on the season.

A few of my takeaways from this one...

Pound the basketball inside

How many games now have we seen West Virginia continue to heave up threes, highly contested or not, when it's just not falling? It happens a bunch in the opening minutes of games, which is why I think we see this group has a tendency to start the game slowly. They don't go inside nearly enough. When they do, they tend to have a lot of success. Tonight was a perfect example of that, finishing the game with _ point in the paint. Between Brenen Lorient, Chance Moore, and DJ Thomas, they have the ability to play through the paint more often, and they should. The long ball isn't working, so why not stay on the attack?

Lack of physicality really stings this team

TCU more than doubled its average of 9.9 offensive rebounds per game, finishing the game with 19 boards on that end and 13 second-chance points. Defensive rebounding is all about focus and positioning. It doesn't take a ton of skill, hence why even the elite offensive rebounding percentage for a team is super low. But when you give a team a second, third, and sometimes a fourth chance on one possession, they're bound to make you pay.

This just is not an NCAA Tournament team...

Well, it was fun to talk about for the past couple of weeks, but this loss pretty much does West Virginia in as far as an at-large is concerned, I would think. The Utah loss put a huge stain on the Mountaineers' resume, but there was still an opportunity to finish strong with no margin for error and sneak in. Regardless of whether or not they still have a chance, this team hasn't shown that they are worthy of one of those 68 spots. The offense is hideous, and you're not going to be able to beat teams by playing in the 50s and 60s constantly, hence why they are 16-11.

West Virginia will be back in action on Tuesday night on the road, taking on the Oklahoma State Cowboys (16-11, 4-10) at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN and can be streamed on the WatchESPN app.