WVU Basketball Plagued by Scoring Droughts in Big 12 Play

WVU basketball is 3-1 so far in Big 12 play, but the Mountaineers have certainly not taken the easy route to get there.

West Virginia, ranked No. 21 in the AP Top 25, has struggled with inconsistent offense all season, leading to several extended scoring droughts at times this year. The Mountaineers have been short-handed since the start of conference play, missing Tucker DeVries for several weeks and KJ Tenner and Amani Hansberry for a couple of games each.

This has led to the team playing with a very restricted bench recently, resulting in fatigue and second-half scoring droughts in all four conference games so far. Those cold periods turned comfortable leads at Kansas and Colorado into nail-biting finishes, allowed Arizona to pull away late and put a shred of doubt into the end against Oklahoma State.

“We’re a little shorthanded, so we do get fatigued sometimes in the second half,” WVU coach Darian DeVries admitted after beating Colorado on Sunday. “We just don’t have the amount of bodies we needed to sub and then we got into a little foul trouble on top of it. We did get worn out a little bit.”

Against the Buffaloes, the Mountaineers had a nine-minute period where they shot just 3-14 from the floor and gave up a 19-7 scoring run that let CU cut a one-time 14-point lead down to just two.

“That game shifted pretty quickly in the second half,” DeVries said. “Our offense had gotten a little stagnant. We were settling for some jumpers off some of their switching.”

West Virginia had two such sequences down the stretch against Arizona that allowed the Wildcats to pull away for a comfortable victory.

WVU went 0-4 from the floor during a 3.5-minute stretch to allow an 11-0 run that increased Arizona’s lead from six to 17 with under 10 minutes to play. Then, the Mountaineers closed the game by shooting 1-11 from the floor over the final 6:34 and never again threatened the Wildcats’ lead.

Even in last week’s blowout win over Oklahoma State, there was an 8.5-minute stretch when the Mountaineers shot just 1-10 and gave up a 17-2 run. It didn’t affect the final result, but it cut a 28-point lead down to 13 with five minutes to play.

Finally, in WVU’s dramatic win at Kansas, the Jayhawks had a 15-2 run in the second half that cut a 15-point WVU lead down to a two-point advantage. The Mountaineers shot just 1-11 from the field during that seven-and-a-half minutes.

With no word on a return for Tucker DeVries or Tenner, WVU could continue to be short-handed in the immediate future. That could cause problems as the Mountaineers play No. 12 Houston and No. 3 Iowa State over the next week.

For a related story, latest tournament projection has WVU basketball up against a familiar regional foe.