(WVU postgame Zoom conference)
West Virginia stuck with Kansas for one half Saturday, before the ninth-ranked Jayhawks dominated on both ends of the court to pull away for a comfortable 85-59 victory at Allen Fieldhouse.
“The easiest thing to say is we came out of halftime flat,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “We didn’t make shots. We hurried things. We turned the ball over entirely too much in the second half. They played way better than we did.”
Despite making only 7-of-31 field goals, WVU led for much of the opening 20 minutes and went to halftime facing a 33-31 deficit after making 14-of-15 free throws.
“That’s not something we focus on, but if your outside shots aren’t falling, you have to try to get something to the hoop,” WVU forward Jalen Bridges said. ”A lot of times they’re going to foul you.”
The Mountaineers (13-3, 2-2) failed to score for the first 4:40 of the second half, and by the time they did, Kansas (14-2, 3-1) was in control. Jalen Wilson scored inside, David McCormack followed with consecutive buckets, and Ochai Agbaji connected from beyond the arc to give KU a 42-31 lead with 16:33 remaining.
Gabe Osabuohien’s layup marked the Mountaineers’ first points of the second half, which WVU started by missing five shots and turning the ball over twice.
“we came out with a lot of energy in the first half,” Bridges said. “We were making shots and getting stops and it’s easy to play with energy when that’s happening. In the second half, we came out flat and they went on a big run.”
WVU soon opted to try a 1-3-1 defense, but it did little to slow down Kansas, which took a 53-38 lead with 12:24 remaining after the second of consecutive Christian Braun layups.
Wilson’s triple with 9:42 to play gave Kansas its first 20-point advantage at 62-42, though Osabuohien and Malik Curry combined to score six straight points, with Curry’s layup cutting the deficit to 14 at the 8:42 mark.
WVU got no closer, and starting with Agbaji’s dunk with 4:51 remaining, KU closed the contest on a 15-4 run.
After halftime, the Jayhawks shot better than 61 percent (22 of 36), held a 25-14 rebounding advantage and limited WVU to 10 of 32 shooting.
“They made shots and they have a lot of weapons,” Huggins said. “We were trying to go 1-3-1 to see if we could slow down the onslaught, but it didn’t work. The transition is what killed us. The 1-3-1 didn’t hurt us that bad, and man-to-man wasn’t that bad. We didn’t get back in transition and we didn’t stop the ball.
“We got killed in transition. If you want to put one thing on it that turned the game around, it was their transition game more than anything else.”
Outside of its continued improve free-throw shooting, the Mountaineers struggled to produce offense in the first half as well, but limited the Jayhawks to 41 percent shooting and held a 24-22 rebounding advantage.
Kansas built an early 14-8 advantage, but the Mountaineers ran off 14 unanswered points in less than 3 minutes to lead by eight 10:48 before halftime. During that stretch, Malik Curry scored six points, Bridges five and Sean McNeil converted a conventional three-point play.
But the Mountaineers made only two field goals the remainder of the opening half, which KU closed with a 12-4 spurt starting with Mitch Lightfoot’s layup at the 5:06 mark.
In a matchup of the Big 12’s top two scorers, Agbaji finished with 20 points, scoring 10 in each half, while WVU’s Taz Sherman was held to five points on 1-of-9 shooting. Sherman had two points on 0-of-8 shooting in the opening half.
“Taz hasn’t fully recovered from the COVID,” Huggins said. “It varies from person to person. He’s been fine in practice, but he’s played a lot of minutes. They moved a lot and had great movement in their offense. We were relying on him to score the ball for us and he struggled, and he put a little more pressure on himself when that happened.”
Curry made all 11 of his free throws attempts and 6-of-13 field goals to lead West Virginia with 23 points — seven more than he’d scored in any of his first 15 games as a Mountaineer.
“I felt confident as soon as I got in the game,” Curry said. “It’s a big game and big stage. I just want to provide for the team. Today I got it going, which was a great feeling. Just try to play my game, contribute and help the team win.”
Bridges had 12 points and a team-high 11 rebounds, while McNeil scored 10 points. WVU was held to 27 percent shooting in its most lopsided defeat since an 81-50 setback at Texas Tech on February 4, 2019.
“As the game went on, they adjusted more and more to our personnel and who wanted to do what,” Huggins said. “They scouted Sean, Taz and JB to get their tendencies, which is probably why Malik had a good seconnd half, because he probably wasn’t as big in the scouting report as those other three guys were.”
Wilson scored 23 points and added eight rebounds, while McCormack had his way inside with 19 points and 15 rebounds.
The Mountaineers attempt to prevent their first two-game skid of the season at 5 p.m. Tuesday when they welcome top-ranked Baylor, which likely won’t come to Morgantown No. 1 after suffering its first loss of the season Tuesday against Texas Tech.