What Darian DeVries Said Following the Loss to Arizona State

The No. 23 West Virginia Mountaineers (13-5, 4-3) fell to the Arizona State Sun Devils (11-7, 2-5) Tuesday night 65-57.

West Virginia University head coach Darian DeVries met with the media following the game and gave his assessment on the lost to the Sun Devils.

West Virginia shooting a season-worst 31% from the field, including senior guard Javon Small’s 2-18 from the floor

We put so much on Javon and on a night where they made it hard for him to get loose and free, we got to be able to find different ways to score, and that’s been our struggle, and that’s where us continuing to get movement and setting flares and getting some down screens and some actions to free guys up where they don’t have to be the primary ball handler but be able to come off of something to create some space and get Javon the ball, and that’s something we got to continue to work on and get better at, but that’s where we stall out sometimes.

Defense struggling to contain the Arizona State offese.

On a night where we go 4-29 from three is still our defense has to be what carries us, and in the second half when they shoot 61% that’s not good enough. That’s what I know we can do on a nightly basis, and we didn’t get that accomplished to night.

Defense continued

I thought in the second half some if it was just some breakdowns on our help in rotations and we’ve been really good at that. In the first half, the guys were good at it. We were getting two guys on the ball and getting some steals, raking the ball out as we call it, and in the second half I thought we got a little stretched, and I don’t know if it was the urgency of trying to call back into it and now we’re a little anxious and putting a little more heat on the ball and now they’re driving down hill and we got guys stepping up at the ball and they’re throwing lobs or getting offensive rebounds because we committed a second guy to the driver. That was disappointing because that’s something that’s been a strength of ours most of the year.