MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Coming off of its lone dud of the season, West Virginia is looking to get back to its winning ways when Texas visits WVU Coliseum at 7 p.m. on Monday night.
Bound for the Top 10 with a win, the Mountaineers (14-3, 3-2 Big 12) were instead humbled in an 84-68 loss at Kansas State on Saturday.
Though Texas (12-5, 2-3) has not wowed anyone this season, Shaka Smart’s crew have not served as a get-well elixir for the Mountaineers in recent meetings. Texas has won its last three games against West Virginia since taking an 86-51 beating at the Coliseum in 2018.
Statistically, these Horns are the closest Smart has had to his ‘Havoc’ teams at Virginia Commonwealth. Texas is forcing turnovers on 21.5 percent of its defensive possessions — still a far cry from his VCU teams that were better than 25 percent, but a marked improvement from the 18.4 percent the Horns averaged in Smart’s first four seasons.
West Virginia has been susceptible to losing the ball this season, with Saturday’s loss laying that problem bare. Kansas State scored 28 points on 18 Mountaineer turnovers. WVU is averaging 15.4 turnovers per game, which is the worst in the Big 12 and 249th nationally.
The good news for the Mountaineers is that Texas has not had the offense to match its defensive prowess.
Texas is one of the 20 teams in the country that actually shoots worse from the free-throw line than West Virginia, hitting only 63.9 percent of its foul shots.
No one in the nation has a lower percentage of points from the line than the Longhorns — a meager 11.6 percent of their points are free throws. Even with its considerable shooting struggles, West Virginia nearly doubles Texas in its percentage of scoring from the line.
It is worth noting that Texas does have a road win at one of nation’s few venues comparable in toughness to WVU Coliseum. The Longhorns are the only visiting team to win at Purdue’s Mackey Arena this season, handing the Boilermakers a 70-66 defeat back on Nov. 9.