Inconsistency Haunts WVU Basketball During Charleston Classic

WVU basketball faced two major challenges in the Shriner’s Children’s Charleston Classic, resulting in an 0-2 weekend with a 70-67 loss to Clemson and a 78-68 loss to Xavier.

There were highs and lows for the Mountaineers, but inconsistency on both sides of the ball became the team’s Achilles heel.

WVU fell victim to a stellar shooting performance by Xavier Sunday, as the Musketeers went 16-25 from beyond the arc. The game also featured the first time WVU went into halftime without the lead this season, as Xavier finished the half with a 23-7 run over the final 9:45 for a 36-28 halftime score.

The run featured two scoring droughts of at least three minutes for WVU without any points in the final 4:06. The Mountaineers had more consistent scoring in the second half, scoring 40 points, but were unable to overcome the hole they were in at halftime.

Head coach Ross Hodge discussed the issues on both sides of the ball in the postgame press conference.

“I didn’t think we impacted the ball enough defensively. It seemed like we allowed the ball to go where it wanted to go when it wanted to go there. We weren’t impactful enough on the ball… I’d say one of the biggest disappointments for me is we missed 33 shots,” Hodge said.

Hodge added while the team had seven offensive rebounds, two of them were in the “team” category and senior guard Treysen Eaglestaff had two when the game was out of reach, inflating that statistic.

“If you’re going to allow a team to be that comfortable on the offensive end of the floor, then you’ve gotta make up for it in some areas and we just weren’t able enough,” Hodge said.

The loss to Xavier came just two days after WVU gave up an 11-point second half lead to Clemson. There were three separate six-minute stretches of time where WVU failed to score a field goal with two of those in the second half.

WVU was out scored 27-15 in the final 10 minutes against Clemson.

“Simply put, I felt like down the stretch they were able to execute at a higher level than we were,” Hodge said after the loss to Clemson. “They got the ball where they wanted. They finished. We had a hard time getting the ball where we wanted and when we did, we didn’t finish.”

The Mountaineers still have time to iron out the wrinkles in its performance, as senior forward Jackson Fields is still recovering from injury and fifth-year guard Chance Moore made his debut against Clemson. The Mountaineers have two tests in Wake Forest and Ohio State before conference play, which starts Jan. 2 against No. 15 I0wa State.

West Virginia will take the court again at 3 p.m. on Sunday when it plays Mercyhurst at the Hope Coliseum.

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