WVU Basketball is Officially Off the Rails

What went wrong, and where does it go from here

Credit: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register

Watching the Iowa State game on Saturday, I was taken back to memories from my youth when I would be sick from school. No, I don't mean the nausea (though there was plenty of that last night too). I mean the Price is Right - specifically, the Cliff Hanger game. There may be no better analogy for watching WVU basketball over the last few weeks: the slow climb to the edge of the cliff, and the accompanying feeling of helplessness to stop the inevitable fall.

Mountaineer fans are left scratching their heads. After a massive beating to start the season, the team rebounded in true Huggins fashion and rolled off 15 straight wins, climbing to number two in the polls and a projected top seed in the NCAA tournament. Halfway through the Texas Tech game, with another double-digit lead in hand, talk started to turn to Villanova's upcoming game against Butler and the potential of being ranked number one in the country. We all know where the story goes from there.

This is my attempt to sort through what has happened, what hasn't happened, and what needs to happen for this to still be a successful season.

The Good

Credit: Rachel Mummey-
USA TODAY Sports

As hard as it is to believe, there are some good things we've seen over the last six games. The obvious one is the 35-point bludgeoning of Texas. Less obviously, and more painfully, the blown leads: it takes a really good team to build 12, 16, and 17 point leads against Texas Tech, Kansas, and Kentucky, respectively, in the first place. There's no denying that the ceiling is high.

From a player standpoint, Beetle Bolden has been a bright spot over this stretch. Chase Harler has put
in some good minutes, and Logan Routt has shown major improvement. We got to see some good moments from D'Angelo Hunter over that stretch, when he had been otherwise silent the rest of the season. Even Esa Ahmad (who has been the target of blame for a lot of fans) had 17 points on 70% shooting and eight rebounds against Iowa State, easily his best offensive performance since coming back. That's a lot of experience gained in big games for our "depth" players.

Individually, at some point, all of our pieces have proven their worth during the season. The issue is they have not shown it collectively, nor consistently. 

The Bad

Oh, the bad...where to begin?

There are a lot of problems with this team. Not being able to close out games seems like a major one, but if you listen to Huggins, that's more a result of other problems than it is its own problem. 

The Iowa State game seems to confirm that, because it put to rest a lot of the excuses that were being made prior to it. The blown leads against Texas Tech and Kansas were a product of big egos and not being able to handle the moment. The loss at TCU was a result of a two day turn-around with a road trip. Kentucky? Well they are full of five star recruits, and they just out-talented our three star guys in the second half.

But Iowa State? It was a Wednesday game, not a quick turn-around. Iowa State is a bad team, possibly the worst in the conference. They were missing their best all-around player, and their roster is less talented than the Mountaineers. They scored 45 points against Tennessee on Saturday in HiltonJohn Beilein's first season.

Credit: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register

Coliseum. And they absolutely, unabashedly tore apart West Virginia from start to finish, putting up the most points any WVU team has given up since

There is no chemistry on either side of the ball. No offense is being run, and no one is getting to their spot on defense. The scoring spurts that do come are all individual efforts - mainly Carter, Konate, or Bolden making plays to keep the rest of the team afloat.

The collection of forwards - West, Harris, Ahmad, Bender, and Allen - have been a major disappointment over this six game stretch. Each has shown flashes of brilliance at times this season, but more often than not they're seen chucking bad shots and not getting back on defense. 

And Daxter Miles has disappeared.

The assumption keeps being that one of these losses will be a wake-up call, but it's just the same nightmare over and over.

The Ugly

The post-game by Bob Huggins after the Iowa State game contained things I hadn't heard him say since the 2012-2014 stretch of bad seasons. The complete feeling of defeat, the references to guys needing to leave the program; it was reminiscent of the mass exodus when McCune, Williamson, Forsythe, Miles, Gerun, Brown, Murray, Hinds, Henderson, and Harris all transferred over a three year period. Most of those guys were good players - Harris, Henderson, Hinds, Miles, and Brown actually sound like one heck of a starting lineup - but they weren't the players that Huggins needs. They weren't Da'Sean Butler, they weren't Nathan Adrian, and they weren't Jevon Carter.

Credit: USA TODAY Sports

At 16-6 and 5-4 in the toughest conference in basketball, I don't think we're at that point yet. I feel like, in our Price is Right Cliff Hanger game, we're a dollar away from the peak with one guess to go. A loss on Saturday, though, and in seven games this team will have gone from being talked about as a one-seed to being talked about as potentially missing the tournament altogether in one of the biggest collapses in college basketball history.

The Future

Our fans owe it to our players to show up on Saturday, but the players owe it to the fans to do the same...not just Saturday, but throughout the rest of the season. 

The WVU fan base is one of the most passionate in the country, and they'll be there every step of the way if they feel the players are giving it their all. But they also share the frustration of Huggins, and many see the same lack of caring and emotion that he sees. 

Let's get back to playing for each other and playing for the state again. Like Huggins said in his post game, if your man beats you on defense, you should be mad. You should take it personally. 

Let's get back to West Virginia basketball, starting Saturday, and keep it from going over that cliff.

And, most importantly: Let's Go Mountaineers.

What We've Learned About WVU Through 15 Games

Credit: Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

It was fair to question the top 10 preseason ranking. After the first game of the season, it would have been crazy to not question it. After all, many of the key pieces from the 2016-17 Big 12 runner-up and NCAA Sweet 16 season were gone.

There was no Nate Adrian coaching from the court. Tarik Phillip and Teyvon Myers weren't coming off the bench for scoring. Elijah Macon wasn't available to provide his signature bursts of energy. And, yes, Esa Ahmad would eventually play, but who knew where WVU would stand when he finally made it back?

But the team bounced back from that embarrassing opening loss to reel off 14 straight wins (the longest streak in the country), resulting in a likely #2 ranking when the polls come out later today. As I'm sure you've heard, that's the highest ranking WVU will have had since the Jerry West era, and it's been a heck of a journey to this point.

Jevon Carter Just Keeps Getting Better

Credit: AP Photo/Raymond Thompson

Through 12 games, senior point guard Jevon Carter was already putting up historic numbers. If you plugged his points, assists, rebounds, and steals per game into the statistics database, you would have seen that no one had ever reached the level he had in those four categories since they started tracking assists in the 1980s.

Games 13 and 14 were a step back, and it was discovered later that he suffered a sprained wrist against Oklahoma State. Even in a "down" performance, he managed to not only rack up 10 assists and eight rebounds against Kansas State, but he held his man scoreless from the floor on 0-10 shooting. All of this was setting up for a showdown with the best offensive player in the country: Oklahoma's Trae Young.

Young spent two hours being harassed by Carter and the rest of the Mountaineer defense. He was visibly flustered all game, and his frustration led to him forcing bad shot after bad shot. Young left Morgantown with a loss thanks to his worst shooting percentage, assist total, and turnover total for the season. Meanwhile, despite sitting for almost a full 10 minutes in the second half due to foul trouble (and at least one questionable call), Carter still managed 17 points, 10 assists, seven rebounds, and three steals. He surely would have had a 20/10/10 night if he was able to stay in the game.

The Rest of the Team Has Grown

The scariest thought going into the Oklahoma game was Carter getting into foul trouble and having to sit for an extended period. Only a few minutes into the second half, that thought became reality. Fortunately, the rest of the team picked up the slack. Not only did they not let Oklahoma take over the game, they actually built on the lead during the time Carter was out.

Sagaba Konate put up 16 points and a career-high 13 rebounds, along with a whopping five blocks. He was perfect from the free throw line, and all five of his made shots came while Carter was out.

Lamont West hit some big threes early, as well as knocking down an important long two and all of his free throws down the stretch on his way to 17 points.

Credit: Photo courtesy of WVU

The big story - as it has been since conference play started - was freshman Teddy Allen. Allen played 24 minutes and scored 20 points, shooting 82% from the field and going 2-2 at the line. He's now managed 57 points (19.0 points per game) in 59 minutes (19.7 minutes per game) during conference play, hitting 70.5% of his shots from the field and 90% from the stripe. His 0.996 points-per-minute mark in conference is even better than Trae Young's impressive 0.877. It's likely his playing time will continue to increase as the season progresses.

The Road Doesn't Get Any "Esa"-ier

While Esa Ahmad's return is great news, the next few weeks aren't going to get any easier. Baylor comes to town on Tuesday night, and Ahmad's return will coincide with what could be a top 10 road match up against the red-hot Red Raiders of Texas Tech on Saturday. Assuming WVU can get through those two battles, they'll be rewarded with facing a hungry (and talented) Kansas team for Big Monday two days later, followed by Texas, a road game at TCU, and back home for Kentucky. The last thing the Mountaineers want is to go on a 3-3 or 2-4 slide after the momentum gained from Saturday's win.

The other discussion surrounding the return of Ahmad is how he will be integrated into the game plan. Obviously he is one of the most physically gifted players on the roster, and he was the second leading scorer last year, so he will get minutes. However, the team has won 14 in a row with him on the bench, and there is something to be said for chemistry, especially for a group like this where "team" is the name of the game. The last thing Bob Huggins will want to do is disrupt something that has been working so well, but if anyone can make it a smooth transition, it's Coach Huggins.

Credit: Ben Queen, USA TODAY Sports

Predictions

The Baylor game should be a win. I think the Texas Tech game will be a hard-fought loss. The team should rebound and beat Kansas and Texas at home, as well as TCU on the road. That would put them at 18-2 (7-1) when Kentucky comes to town, and still in the top 10. My feeling is that Esa will be quiet in his return until the Kentucky game, and it will be that game where he comes to life again.

I hope I'm wrong about Texas Tech, and I hope I'm right about the rest. But there's one prediction I'm fully confident about: no one is going to want any part of the Mountaineers at full strength when March rolls around.