Although his team won two of three games in the Big 12 Tournament, Mike Carey discussed the need for West Virginia to fix its offense to make a run in the NCAA Tournament.
The Mountaineers showed improvement in Sunday’s 77-53 opening-round win over Lehigh, but reverted back to how they played offensively in the conference tournament Tuesday in a 73-56 season-ending loss to Georgia Tech.
“We weren’t moving the ball. When we got them to take a tough shot, they got an offensive rebound and it was a reset or we didn’t close out on a shooter,” Carey said. “On the other end, we were going 1-on-4 and you can’t do that. I saw this coming. I really did. I tried to correct it. We just didn’t get it corrected.”
West Virginia managed only 39 points after the first quarter and committed 10 costly second-half turnovers, including five during a third quarter that saw the Yellow Jackets turn a four-point halftime lead into a 58-41 advantage after making 9-of-12 shots.
“It’s a matter of finding your rhythm within the game and we do that on the defensive end,” GT coach Nell Fortner said. “We started locking in defensively a little bit better and that gives us confidence on the offensive end.”
The Mountaineers struggled to contain GT guard Lotta-Maj Lahtinen (game-high 22 points) and 6-foot-4 Lorela Cubaj (21 points, 12 rebounds).
For West Virginia (22-7), catching the Yellow Jackets after they shot 60 percent and held a 28-12 rebounding advantage over the first three quarters proved too difficult.
“We played well in the beginning and then started taking some bad shots, quit playing defense, quit rebounding and started fouling,” Carey said. “From that point on, we were in trouble.”
Perhaps the Mountaineers ran out of gas after largely utilizing a seven-player rotation down the stretch. Although point guard Madisen Smith returned from an eight-game absence for a pulled groin against GT, she played 4 minutes and did not record a statistic.
That puts added pressure on the team’s top two scorers — guards Kysre Gondrezick and KK Deans. Gondrezick scored 26 points and Deans added 19 in the first-round win, but the duo combined for 14 points on 4-of-17 shooting against the Yellow Jackets.
After a three-pointer in the game’s opening minutes, Gondrezick never scored again and she didn’t attempt a shot in the second half. While Deans scored 11 points, she had only two after halftime and missed all three of her shots.
“It’s tournament time and it’s called survive and advance,” Deans said. “You have to give it your all on the court whether you’re tired or not and you have to find that second, third and fourth gear. We didn’t find that second, third or fourth gear.”
Tuesday wasn’t one of West Virginia’s better defensive games and being outrebounded by a bigger team by 14 didn’t help the cause. But after averaging 55.6 points in three Big 12 Tournament games, the Mountaineers couldn’t carry over their offensive effort from the Lehigh win, which made the task of reaching their first Sweet 16 under Carey all the more difficult.
West Virginia did not score 60 points in four of its final five games after failing to do so just once in its previous 24 contests this season.
“Georgia Tech is a good team, but they’re not 20 points better than us and I don’t think they’re better than us at all,” Deans said. “They played harder than us and that’s the bottom line. We didn’t swing the ball. I airballed thre shots. I don’t do that normally. It just wasn’t our night.”