Aside from Beetle Bolden’s splurge of buckets of the bench, No. 13 West Virginia played shoddy offense. Yet its shutdown defense was enough to put down Oklahoma.
The Mountaineers created 23 turnovers and limited the Sooners to 33-percent shooting during a 61-50 victory Wednesday night in Norman, Okla.
“I thought that’s the best we’ve guarded,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, whose team had been 0-4 at the Lloyd Noble Center. “We did a better job of guarding the ball and we did a much better job in pressure.”
BOXSCORE: West Virginia 61, Oklahoma 50
As both teams sputtered to season-low scoring totals, Bolden sparked the Mountaineers (19-5, 7-4) with 17 points — 15 of those during a six-minute first-half stretch.
After hitting three 3-pointers, the freshman closed the half by pump-faking a defender and cutting through the lane for a layup that put WVU ahead to stay 27-25.
“If I can get a shot up, I’m going to get it up,” said Bolden, who came in scoring 3.5 per game and had never reached double figures. “The coaches know I can score so they don’t get mad when I take a shot.”
Oklahoma (8-15, 2-9) dropped its sixth consecutive game in large part because point guard Jordan Woodard finished 2-of-11 from the floor with six points and five turnovers. He was a marked man after his 20-point performance floored West Virginia in last month’s 89-87 overtime upset.
“We did what we were supposed to do in Morgantown — we wore him down,” Huggins said. “It’s hard to fight that pressure the whole game and to have to work that hard to get that ball across the timeline.”
MORE: Photo gallery from WVU-Oklahoma
Sooners coach Lon Kruger said teammates exacerbated Woodard’s off night by failing to catch and attack Press Virginia on the back end.
“We did not move with the same conviction and commitment to be available,” he said. “Receivers have got to be active, available, and have got to know where the guy with the ball is.
“Against West Virginia, you got to work hard. They do one of the best jobs in the country with their pressure. It did not kill us there (in Morgantown), but it did tonight. They definitely won that battle.”
With WVU junior guard Daxter Miles sidelined by what the team described as an ankle injury suffered in practice, Tarik Phillip started alongside Jevon Carter. The duo combined to hit 3-of-15 shots and mitigated five assists with four turnovers, but each also made four steals.
Nathan Adrian finished with 13 points and seven rebounds in a team-leading 35 minutes for the Mountaineers, while Sagaba Konate wagged a finger after his fifth blocked shot, the most for a West Virginia player dating back three seasons.
“Sags coming in was really good guarding the basket,” Huggins said. “He may be the best rim protector we’ve had in my time here.
“(Joe) Alexander was a different kind of guy and Wellington Smith did a great, great job for us. But I don’t know if any of them can make the kind of plays that he makes sometimes.”
Cameron McGusty and Jordan Shepherd scored 11 points each to pace the Sooners, whose 16 field goals matched their fewest since a November 2012 loss to Gonzaga.
Play was so ragged early that Oklahoma missed 11 consecutive shots over an 8-minute stretch yet retained a 14-10 lead.
“I thought obviously the West Virginia pressure bothered us a lot,” Kruger said. “We did not handle it nearly as well as we had to to have a chance.”
Late-night travel
No fan of the Big 12’s only Eastern Time Zone team playing 9 p.m. road games, Huggins said the Mountaineers’ trip home was complicated by snow that rerouted the charter flight from Bridgeport to Pittsburgh.
EmBoldened by reserve
West Virginia trailed 11-2 after missing seven of its first eight shots when Huggins inserted Bolden at he 14:33 mark.
“I thought, let’s get him in there and see if he can make a shot or two, and he gets 15 points the first half,” Huggins said.
The generously listed 6-foot guard remains a defensive liability though he looked sufficient in 10 minutes of action.
“He’s got good feet, but he just gets overpowered sometimes,” Huggins said. “He’s got to continue to work real hard in that weight room and get stronger.”
Cold-shooting
West Virginia overcame 37-percent shooting from the floor, its lowest since last season’s NCAA tournament loss to Stephen F. Austin.
“We struggled on offense, but I don’t know, it’s hard when there’s so much contact to run clean offense,” Huggins said. “And we didn’t do a very good job of finding open guys.”