Last season, many figured a win like this was bound to come sooner or later. Surely West Virginia was not going to have a bad year – they were going to figure it out, maybe get one win that unleashes them and just like that, they will be Big 12 contenders as usual.
Except that never happened. Instead, things went from bad to worse as they were a team beset by chemistry issues, and an 0-5 start in Big 12 play (after an 8-4 non-conference mark with no signature wins) turned into a 4-14 Big 12 finish. They won two games in the Big 12 Tournament to reach the semifinals, then were dispatched by Kansas, and went 1-1 in the CBI to finish 15-21.
21 losses by a Bob Huggins team? Unthinkable. But it happened.
This season has been different. A year ago, a win like Sunday’s 67-59 victory over Ohio State in Cleveland never came. Oh sure, they beat Kansas in Morgantown, but that was thought of as perhaps an aberration (and was). And though it is their best win, it’s not the only significant one thus far.
Ohio State had a 37-31 lead at the break, so the Mountaineers had to dig deep for this one. They did just that, especially at the defensive end, which was just one of the problem areas last year. West Virginia held Ohio State to 31.3 percent shooting, and they lead the Big 12 in field goal percentage defense and rebounding margin thus far, although they were out-rebounded by seven on Sunday.
A freshman had a career afternoon to lead the way as Miles McBride, a Cincinnati native, scored 21 points, including six in the final two and a half minutes as the Mountaineers sealed it. It made up for an off game from classmate Oscar Tshiebwe, who has five double-doubles on the season but was scoreless and grabbed just three rebounds in eight minutes due to foul trouble. He came into the game as the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, relinquishing the latter for the time being to Derek Culver, who had seven points and 10 rebounds on the afternoon.
West Virginia now has three significant wins, having also knocked off Northern Iowa and Wichita State in the Cancun Challenge, and wins over arch rival Pittsburgh and Rhode Island aren’t bad, either. The only loss is at St. John’s, a pleasant surprise thus far, and save for a visit from Missouri in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, it’s all Big 12 action from here on out. They will enter with a better record and far better resume than they did a year ago, so this time around an 0-5 start to Big 12 play will be a shocker, even with the first two games coming on the road at Kansas and Oklahoma State.
This season, simply put, has been different – and more like what one can expect from a Bob Huggins team.
Side Dishes
Well, it was a good run. Liberty lost for the first time on the season, a 74-57 setback at LSU that will stop any talk of an undefeated season as they are now 14-1. Now the focus turns to the Flames being prohibitive favorites in the Atlantic Sun.
Stanford ran out to an 11-1 record and had become one of the real pleasant surprises, with the only loss being a tough one to Butler in the championship of the Hall of Fame Classic. They were 8-0 at home, and while they mainly won games they should, they had knocked off Oklahoma in Kansas City before the loss to Butler, and a couple of other wins weren’t against pushovers. But Kansas was a little different team to play, and the Jayhawks handled the Cardinal in Maples Pavilion 72-56 in a game that wasn’t even that close. The Jayhawks broke it open in the second half, and it wasn’t a competitive game.
After the game, Kansas got a scare as they attempted to fly back to Lawrence. About 20 minutes into their flight, one of the engines failed, but the plane was able to make a safe emergency landing at San Jose Airport. ESPN.com had a report that shared a video from Kansas senior associate athletics director Ryan White that appeared to show sparks coming from one of the plane’s wings. The team planned to stay the night in San Jose and make further plans to return home, as noted in this statement:
Other results of note: Auburn ran away from Lipscomb 86-59 to go to 12-0; Maryland pulled away from Bryant 84-70; Virginia got 10 points and 13 assists from Kihei Clark to hold off Navy 65-56; Notre Dame got one of the best individual efforts of the day as John Mooney had 16 points and 18 rebounds to lead them to an 82-56 romp over Alabama A&M; Hartford went to Northwestern and edged the Wildcats 67-66 on a jumper in the final seconds; South Florida just got past Florida Atlantic 60-58; Isaiah Joe and Mason Jones combined for 45 points and led Arkansas past Indiana 71-64; Kansas State held off Tulsa 69-67; Harvard went out west and blocked 11 shots en route to beating Cal 71-63; Alabama beat Richmond 90-78 behind 28 points and eight rebounds from Jaden Shackelford; and Saint Louis beat Bethune-Cookman 77-67 in a game featuring two great double-doubles as Jordan Goodwin led the Billikens with 14 points and 16 rebounds while Cletrell Pope had 11 points and 19 rebounds in the losing effort.
Michigan State took care of Western Michigan 95-62 on Sunday, but they did so without All-American Cassius Winston, who sat out due to a bone bruise in his left knee. His status for Thursday night, when Big Ten play resumes in earnest as they host Illinois, is unknown.
Tonight’s Menu
The slate is busier than most Mondays will be the rest of the year, with conference games taking up a good portion as we can expect most of the way until March.
- The first game of the day has Canisius traveling to Pittsburgh (noon)
- CAA action continues with the second game for most teams, highlighted by College of Charleston visiting Delaware (7 p.m.)
- Big East play gets going as Villanova welcomes Xavier (6:30 p.m.) and Seton Hall visiting DePaul (8:30 p.m.)
- In the Horizon League, four games are on tap, including a matchup of 1-0 teams as Youngstown State visits UIC (7 p.m.)
- A few non-conference matchups to watch early on are North Florida visiting Dayton, St. Bonaventure visiting Buffalo and North Carolina hosting Yale (7 p.m.)
- The Missouri Valley Conference gets underway as Southern Illinois visits Indiana State and Loyola-Chicago visits Valparaiso (8 p.m.)
- Good non-conference games a bit later include two at SEC schools as Kent State visits Mississippi State and Davidson travels to Vanderbilt (8 p.m.)
- George Mason heads to Fort Worth to visit TCU in a good matchup (9 p.m.)
- The first American Athletic Conference game is an intriguing matchup as improving Tulane goes to Memphis (9 p.m.)
- Big Sky play continues with five games, but the best game out west is a non-conference tilt as Harvard visits San Francisco (9 p.m.) in the Crimson’s second game in as many days.
