3 Takeaways from WVU’s Win Over UAB

On Saturday night, West Virginia defeated UAB 81-70 in a physical, fast-paced game. Let’s take a look at three takeaways from the game.

West Virginia’s Biggest Win 

With the win over UAB, West Virginia picked up their biggest win of the season so far. UAB is the third quad-2 victory for the Mountaineers, with the first two being Pitt and Florida. Depending on how the Blazers finish off the year, it could be a quad-1 win for WVU by Selection Sunday.

West Virginia currently holds an 0-2 record in quad-1 games against Purdue and Xavier but has many chances to earn some during Big 12 Conference play.

Johnson, Toussaint is the Combo WVU Fans Didn’t Know They Needed

WVU guards Kedrian Johnson and Joe Toussaint have been on a roll lately. The duo have started to really become key parts of the offense as shown on Saturday night. WVU head coach Bob Huggins says that he’s actually surprised with how well Toussaint can shoot and that Johnson was working on his jump shot all summer.

Through 10 games, Toussaint has emerged as one of the team’s most valuable pieces. The senior guard averages 11.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists. Johnson is averaging 8.9 points, 3.2 assists and 1.6 steals per game. Toussaint and Johnson have been giving opposing defenses headaches already.

This duo is one that WVU fans didn’t know they needed.

Mountaineers Limited Down Rotation

Against UAB, Huggins only played 11 guys. Sounds like a lot but when the team has been taking advantage of their depth with 14 players it’s starting to look like WVU is limiting down the rotation. Toussaint and James Okonkwo were the only two bench players to play over 10 minutes. Mohamed Wague, Kobe Johnson, Seth Wilson and Josiah Harris all appeared in a limited form. Wague was in foul trouble early so perhaps he would’ve received more minutes if so.

Huggins has made it clear last week that he wants to give Kobe Johnson, Wilson and Harris more playing time. With Big 12 play only a couple weeks away and the potential addition of Jose Perez, it seems unlikely that West Virginia will play all of their rotation.