WVU Basketball
Houston Shut Down WVU’s Javon Small Better Than Anyone Has

No team has shut down WVU’s Javon Small as effectively as Houston did during Wednesday night’s 70-54 win over the Mountaineers.
The Big 12’s leading scorer, Small, was held to 13 points on 4-11 shooting. It’s one of his lowest offensive outputs of the season for the senior point guard. What was peculiar about Wednesday’s game was early on, Small seemed posed for another signature performance.
Small started 3-4 from the floor with a trio of three-pointers in the first six minutes of the game. He made one layup and two free throws later in the first half and did not score at all in the second.
“Javon got off to a great start and then in the second half, we weren’t able to get him loose quite as much,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said. “I thought we had a couple of times where he came off some stagger (screens) where he had a little bit of a look, but they close so quickly that we couldn’t get him free as much.”
Not only were Small’s points down, but so were his opportunities. WVU’s offense has essentially run through Small this season, especially since Tucker DeVries went down with an injury. Small’s 11 field goal attempts against the Cougars is one of his lowest marks of the season, but even when teams would limit him in the past, he would make up for it by going to the free throw line.
Arizona held him to nine shots in The Bahamas, but he went to the line 10 times. UMass limited him to eight shots, but he again went to the line eight times. Against Houston, however, Small only shot two free throws.
“We had a good plan (on Small),” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, who declined to explain the specifics of their defense on Small. “We work on things that we may never do. What we did, we’ve probably worked on that 20 times this year and tonight’s the first time we did it, but we had it ready.”
The Cougars were particularly aggressive against Small, sending double teams at him almost as soon as he crossed halfcourt, forcing the ball out of his hands. WVU was able to take advantage of that for a time as Small got the ball to Amani Hansberry, who made three three-pointers and scored 12 points in a three-minute stretch.
“We were able to get Amani separated because they were putting two to the ball on Javon,” DeVries said. “So we did get some looks he was able to get down to get us back into the game.”
Houston made another defensive adjustment, shifting to a smaller lineup to guard Hansberry on the perimeter and WVU’s comeback attempt was put to rest as the Cougars went on a 14-0 run to put the game away.
Most teams won’t be able to do what Houston did against Small. The Cougars have the best defense in the Big 12, allowing just 54.2 points per game while holding opponents to 35.2% shooting.
“They’re championship-level good,” DeVries said. “They’ve got great balance and they’re good at both ends of the floor. There’s no weaknesses to their team and they’re deep.”
Small and the Mountaineers will be looking for a bounce-back performance when they return home to host No. 2 Iowa State in the WVU Coliseum Saturday at 5 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
For a related story, Mike Asti and Cody Nespor talked about the game with fans during a live postgame show Wednesday night.