LUBBOCK, Texas – In Derek Culver’s own words, he has a vision of what his game will one day look like, Yet he admits he’s far from a finished product at the moment.
West Virginia’s 6-foot-10 freshman forward powered his way to a career-high 23 points and added 12 rebounds Monday night, a consolation in the Mountaineers’ 81-50 loss at Texas Tech. It marked Culver’s fifth double-double this season and second in a row.
Just how much room does Culver have to grow? West Virginia coach Bob Huggins explained it like this:
“Derek doesn’t have a clue. It’s amazing he gets done what he gets done, because he doesn’t have a clue. If he will listen and put the time in and work at, for instance like Sagaba [Konate] did, he will be good. Sags was a lot like Derek early on and really didn’t understand how to go away from pressure and didn’t have a jump hook. He put a lot of time in and he’s a pretty good low-post player now, because he understands about going away from pressure and not shooting it on the turn. Derek has never really done those things. If Derek will make the commitment, he’s going to be a heck of a player.”
Culver shot 15-of-24 from the foul line, the most free-throw attempts in a game by a WVU player since 1922. It was the most free throws made since Juwan State had 18 against Kansas State in 2014.
Culver came up with a slight limp in the second half after trying to power his way to the basket.
“I tweaked my ankle a little bit and I tweaked my toe,” he said. “I’m all right. Like Huggs says all the time, ‘Just throw some dirt on it and it will be all right.’”
Life on the road
West Virginia fell to 0-6 in road games, with an average losing margin of 18.8 points..
“It’s a hostile environment when you go on the road,” West Virginia guard Jordan McCabe said. “We had 26 turnovers as a team. You’re not going to win anywhere with that. We know that. That’s basically what Huggs told us after the game. He said [the coaches] can’t fix it. We have to fix it.”
Texas Tech enjoyed its largest victory in Big 12 play since 1999.
Culver said playing on the road or traveling in the Big 12 hasn’t been a problem for West Virginia’s first-year players.
“It’s hard for me to tell. We’ve got older guys, but I don’t really know what their take is on playing on the road,” Culver said. “My personal experience and for the other freshmen, I think we’re handling it pretty well. We just have to keep fighting and persevering. We never want to be the type of team that is down and out, even though the scores may seem different.”
Mooney was money
Texas Tech shot 52.6 percent from the field and came away with a 35-27 rebounding advantage.
When Huggins was asked about the difference in the game, he pointed to Mooney, who finished with nine points, five assists and four steals.
“Mooney just big-boyed us,” Huggins said. “His physicality just took our guards out of the game. They didn’t get us into offense and so now you’re running around out there not knowing what you’re doing, because the guy with the ball is dribbling it in between his legs and going from sideline to sideline trying to get away from him rather than pass the ball to somebody. He totally took over the game.”
As for the 26 turnovers, Huggins was most displeased with the fact that the majority of them came from showing a lack of fundamentals.
“How do you throw a two-handed chest pass through three guys?” Huggins asked. “How do you, as a major college basketball player, put the ball over your head and think you’re going to be able to pass it to a guy from over your head? I don‘t think they could get away with that in high school. A lot of the guys that we depend on really had bad games.”