Huggins hints at work ethic issues

The 2018-19 basketball season is certainly not one for the record books and is one that can be hard to watch at times.

Saturday night, the Texas Longhorns strolled into the Coliseum and blew the doors off the Mountaineers, 75-53. Coming into the game, the Longhorns had only won one true road game on the season and were 1-4 on the road in Big 12 play.

Unfortunately, it’s not been just one area that has plagued this years team. It’s a multitude of things. The effort and the want-to have been two talking points this season and it is becoming blantantly  obvious at this point.

In the last two games, West Virginia is averaging 51.5 points per game and is shooting a mere 30% from the field.

“You have to come in and put in work on your own, I think. Now, we have the best complex in America to shoot, there’s no excuses. I shouldn’t have to force them to come in. They should probably come in on their own.” – Coach Huggins said.

It’s evident that guys are just simply not motivated to get in the gym and put in the extra work on their own time to get to the next level.

Is Coach Huggins right by throwing them under the bus? Absolutely.

You shouldn’t need extra motivation or an incentive to go put in extra work. It’s West Virginia basketball, and what we are seeing this year is not that.

The brand of West Virginia basketball has been built on hard working, blue collar guys that exemplify toughness. When you have guys that don’t show up to practice and put in the full effort from start to finish and have a careless attitude, this is exactly what you get.

Losing at the Coliseum by 20 plus points to a slightly above average team is embarrassing. It’s something that should never happen, but this team does not fear losing like teams in years past.

The effort on the defensive end has been atrocious and that’s putting it nicely. Guards are not staying in front and no one is closing out on the shooter from beyond the arc.

“We don’t guard. I use to have a rule that if you got beat and you weren’t pissed off, you went and ran the rest of practice or if there was a game, you wouldn’t play anymore.” Huggins said.

If we’re being completely honest, if coach still had that rule, I’m not so sure he’d be able to fill out a starting lineup.

At this point, it’s just about fighting through the remainder of the season and going into the offseason with some decisions that will have to be made about the makeup of the roster.

West Virginia basketball will be back, but it’s going to take some time.