MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Every season since Bob Huggins was a senior guard at West Virginia, every single Division I basketball team has lost at least one game.
There are far worse ways of picking up that inevitable first loss than West Virginia’s 70-68 defeat against St. John’s on Saturday. The Mountaineers were exposed in areas that need fixing before the start of Big 12 play, yet still ended up one shot away from picking up a road win over a quality opponent.
“We kind of got caught in the hype of 7-0 or whatever,” said sophomore guard Sean McNeil. “You don’t want to learn from a loss, but sometimes it takes a deficit like that to turn things around.”
West Virginia showed some fight with a late 9-0 run to tie the game before St. John’s won it on a pair of free throws with 5 seconds remaining.
With their relenting press, the Red Storm exposed West Virginia’s offense for 22 turnovers. They weren’t the first to do so.
Northern Iowa forced 15 in Mexico, and Wichita State and Rhode Island each turned the Mountaineers over 13 times. West Virginia was able to win those games despite the miscues. St. John’s proved it can’t rely on that always being the case.
“The biggest problem with our point [guards] is ball security,” Huggins said. “You can’t have 22 turnovers.”
Even when West Virginia isn’t turning it over, Huggins said the team isn’t passing the ball crisply enough either, with both guards and forwards bearing some blame. Huggins still believes in his team’s three-point shooting capabilities, but indicated that part of the problem is that the shooters are not receiving quality passes.
“It’s tough to shoot a ball you field at your knees,” Huggins said. “It’s tough to shoot a bounce pass you get below your waist.”
Huggins is looking for all three players to whom he is playing at point guard — Miles McBride, Jordan McCabe and Brandon Knapper — to step up in this regard.
McBride has not started a game, but is leading the trio with an average of 21.9 minutes per game. McCabe, the starter, is at 13.4 minutes per game while Knapper is playing 8.1 minutes per game.
“It’s not a matter of Jordan not doing the right thing,” Huggins said. “”It’s just Deuce [McBride] at this point in time has played better. Deuce didn’t have a real good game in the Garden. And yesterday the best guard on our team [in practice] was Knap. That fluctuates day-to-day with those guys.”
McCabe was noticeably absent from the floor down the stretch at St. John’s, but that was not a result of being in Huggins’ doghouse. That McCabe played at all was a testament to the toughness that explains why Huggins is so high on him in the first place.
McCabe sprained his ankle in practice two days before the game, and couldn’t walk the night before — much less run.
“It was a fairly good ankle sprain,” McCabe said. “I’m no doctor, but I’d say it was probably a Grade-2 sprain. I didn’t think I’d be able to play. Friday night, I couldn’t walk.”
McCabe says he is feeling better now, but he also knows that the point guards need to play better. He thinks that will happen as the team gets the feel for playing with each one.
“It’s hard only eight games in to tell anything definitely,” McCabe said. “It needs to happen organically. And it does happen. That’s just the way of the basketball world. Things fall into position. Guys fall into the right spot.
“Those great teams let it happen. Those teams who have guys going against the grain, they have difficult and trying years. National champions are the ones who let it all happen.”