Takeaways: Defense Not Improving For West Virginia

West Virginia Basketball dropped to 8-17 after losing to No. 12 Baylor 94-81 on Saturday night. Let’s look at some takeaways from the game.

WVU’s Defense Isn’t Adjusting

Throughout the season, West Virginia’s defense has been poor. WVU’s opponents really have taken it up a notch over the last two weeks. West Virginia has allowed 355 points in the last four games against BYU, Texas, TCU and Baylor.

For Baylor, they were allowed to do anything against the Mountaineer defense. Baylor scored 30 points in the paint while shooting 12-of-32 from three. The Bears also scored 22 points off second-chance opportunities.

Whether it was perimeter or interior defense, WVU couldn’t adjust and they haven’t been able to adjust all year with different sets.

First Half Turnovers Too Much

West Virginia turned the ball over left and right during the first half of the Baylor game. The Mountaineers committed 10 turnovers to which helped Baylor extend their lead. WVU did clean up the turnover issue in the second half but it was too late.

Jesse Edwards, Noah Farrakhan, Kerr Kriisa and Kobe Johnson combined for 10-of-14 West Virginia turnovers. The four had miss cues amongst each other but did clean it up.

Season Wasn’t Meant to Be

West Virginia has had a rough year and a lot of it comes from off-the-court problems that were out of the hands of the coaching staff. It took WVU until late January to play with their full roster for the first time this season. Despite all of the adversity, this season just wasn’t meant to be.

Asking transfers from multiple levels of college basketball to mesh together starting against Big 12 teams is too much to ask for a first-year head coach.

The fact of the matter is WVU is on pace to have their worst win total in a single season since 2002, during Gale Catlett’s final year. This season seemed doomed once Bob Huggins resigned, forcing WVU to scramble.

Now it’s looking like West Virginia will have an opportunity to turn the page and begin a new era of Mountaineer basketball.

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