What Darian DeVries Said Following the Win Over TCU

The West Virginia Mountaineers (17-11, 8-9) knocked off the TCU Horned Frogs (15-13, 8-9) Tuesday night 73-55.

West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries met with the media following the game and gave his thoughts on the Mountaineers win against TCU.

Opening Statement

I thought our defense got us started because we were able to get in the open floor and then got some open transition ones. I thought (fifth-year guard) Joe (Yesufu) was a big part of that, especially in the first half. (Senior guard Javon) Von (Small) got going there for a little bit too. I was hoping it was a matter of time. We were getting close to that time where it’s like we’re running out of time. I thought that’s kind of what we envisioned with these guys and these shooters. I still think there’s more there. You know, getting a couple of other guys going down the stretch will be huge for us too, but they make such a difference for us when we can set our defense after made shots and made threes, especially. For us to get 11 threes, that’s really beneficial for our offense. For anybody’s offense, but I thought that was big for us tonight.

Sencire Harris scoring 11 of his 13 points in the first half

We got off to a little bit of a clunky start there, 5-0, and then I thought that Sencire was really good, (and) was aggressive (when) attacking the rim - playing in the open floor, I thought he was just great all around tonight. I thought that he really impacted the game at both ends of the floor, offensively in the first half and then the whole game defensively.

The team's defensive performance

You hold them to 40% [from the field], they made three threes, even a couple of those, one was a bank, and one was an end of a shot clock runner. When we get to play, not taking the ball out of the net, now we can play in transition. The more often we can do that, the better you’re going to be with your offense. For us to play a full 40 minutes, that’s what I was satisfied with tonight. It wasn’t just the first half, I thought the second half – we held them to 37%, so when you’re trying to close out a game when you have a lead like that, I thought we did a good job of extending that lead and then holding onto it offensively.