Whats the Beef Between Wvu and Ohio State
It turns out that West Virginia's victory over Iowa State on Monday night that ended a seven-game losing streak was only an optical illusion, for while it made the losing streak disappear, it did not make the causes for it do the same.
Instead, they all came back to haunt the Mountaineers in one of the ugliest losses of an ugly season, losing at Oklahoma State on Saturday in a game that was crucial if they were to have any shot at the NCAA Tournament.
The Cowboys manhandled the Mountaineers throughout a nightmarish second half of what turned out to be an 81-58 defeat, leaving Coach Bob Huggins perplexed and disappointed, admitting "We're running out of chances."
Indeed, their record fell to 14-10 with their eighth loss in the last nine games, and while Huggins maintains they could turn things around with a late run through the Big 12, he says it with his heart and not his head.
His brain says otherwise. He's watched what's happened as his team unraveled, seen them lose every conference road game they have played this year, seen their inability to throw crisp, accurate passes, to shoot, inside or outside, to rebound, either offensively or defensively, and finally to defend.
It is not a winning formula.
Huggins seemed to be mostly upset with effort, even though he admitted that they weren't very good at fundamentals, either.
"This whole thing has gone into craziness is what it is," Huggins said on his post-game radio interview. "I know that. You know that I'm going to do everything humanly possible to fix this.
"We're not going to lose like this, for one. I told them in there — I almost came to tears in there, man. We're averaging 11,600 people to come see us play … they're still coming. They're still rooting for us. They still care. I know what it means to them to put on the shirt, a Mountaineer shirt.
And if it doesn't change?
"I told them, I'm good with seven. If the rest of you want to leave and go, I'm good with that. If we get seven, I think we can do it."
It may be tough to find seven.
It's been obvious that this is a team that lacks physical toughness.
"They started driving it at the goal and finishing and we faded away from any sign of contact," Huggins said. "That's what happened offensively. Defensively, this is the second game in a row we got big boyed. They just took it and bounced it and bounced it and bounced it until they got close enough to hook it in."
For the first 17 minutes WVU played well, the game being tied at 30-all when WVU missed its final six shots of the first half.
In the second half Oklahoma State played zone, chasing the outside shooters with no fear that anything would be going on offensively under the basket for WVU. They outrebounded the Mountaineers, 48-24, and outscored them in the paint, 40-16.
The second half was turned into a track meet with OSU winning the relay races from one end to the other. They also won the high jumping, dunking the ball with abandon.
Oklahoma State outscored WVU, 51-28, from the time it was tied at 30-30.
To add to disarray the Mountaineers now find themselves in, Gabe Osabuohien is in the doghouse, having been ejected when hit with two technical fouls with 1:18 to play.
Gary Maxwell, with whom he has had a previous run-in, got tired of Osabuohien yapping at him and Huggins, apparently, is tired of it, too.
"Gabe's behavior is no what we're about," Huggins said. "This is the second time. That's the third time. It's the third time with two different officials, so you can't blame it on one guy. Both guys are Final Four officials. He can't do that. It's a terrible representation of our basketball program and a terrible representation of our university."
Not to be overlooked is that WVU shot 32% in the game after a week of shooting badly in practice, according to Huggins. They made only 26% from 3-point range and in the second half was 2-14 on 3-pointers.
Malik Curry was the only offensive threat in the second half, scoring 13 points while Taz Sherman was just 1-for-10 from 3 and 4-16 overall as he scored 12 points, a total matched by Sean McNeil.
Source: https://bluegoldnews.com/west-virginia-mountaineers/wvu-reverts-to-form-in-loss-to-osu/
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