WVU Basketball Used the Lessons it Learned at Pitt to Knock Off Gonzaga

It wasn’t even two full weeks ago that WVU basketball got its you-know-what handed to it by Pitt in the Backyard Brawl.

The Mountaineers looked terrible that night in the Steel City. Their offense looked completely lost and helpless at times while the Panthers seemingly got whatever they wanted against the WVU defense.

First-year head coach Darian DeVries and the Mountaineers didn’t spend the next two weeks licking their wounds, as it turned out, as West Virginia shocked the nation with an 86-78 upset win over No. 3 Gonzaga in the opening round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament on Wednesday.

DeVries said the team learned some hard lessons in the Pitt loss and used them to win on Wednesday.

“I thought our guys did a great job tonight,” DeVries said after the game. “Unfortunately at Pitt, in our first road game, it didn’t go the way we wanted. We told (the players) that’s part of maturing as a team. We just have to make sure we learn from it and the next time it comes up we fix it.”

DeVries’ biggest issue with the Pitt loss was that the Panthers threw the first punch and WVU never punched back. The Mountaineers unraveled following a 9-0 Pitt scoring run early on and the game turned non-competitive very quickly.

The Mountaineers faced a similar situation on Wednesday as Gonzaga went on a 9-0 run to build a 25-16 lead after 10 minutes of play.

Darian DeVries said he wanted to see how his team would respond if in trouble again and giving up a big run like happened against Pitt. Against Pitt, they basically unraveled and let the game get away. But they are now responding to Gonzaga runs much better.

— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) November 27, 2024

Instead of folding, as they did against Pitt, the Mountaineers responded with a 7-2 run of their own and got right back into contention.

The same thing happened in the second half. Gonzaga scored to go up by 10 points, 43-33, and then the Mountaineers rattled off 12 straight points as part of a 17-2 run that put them up by five.

“It was a different mindset in the huddle, there was no panic,” DeVries said. “I thought they were very composed and we had terrific senior leadership from our guys in the huddle. Very poised, confident and matter-of-fact in what we needed to do to be successful and come out on top.”

Another issue against the Panthers was that WVU’s best players, senior Tucker DeVries and Javon Small, were taken out of the game by Pitt’s defense.

The opposite happened Wednesday as the pair combined for 47 of the team’s 86 points and half of the team’s dozen assists.

“We knew we had a lot of things to improve on from that Pitt game,” Tucker DeVries said. “I think that was the best thing for us going forward. We really dug in and improved on what we needed to improve on. That was leaning on each other more offensively and defensively and I thought the progress showed a lot (Wednesday).”

It’s also important to note that Wednesday was just the fifth game this WVU roster has played together that actually counts. The players are still learning one another and how they all fit into DeVries’ system.

“As we get more comfortable together, we have more confidence in each other,” Tucker DeVries said. “I thought (Wednesday) was another great step in the right direction.”

Onlookers around the country will see Wednesday’s result and call it a statement win for DeVries and the Mountaineers. WVU’s coach disagrees, however.

“It’s not really a statement or anything,” Coach DeVries said. “Our whole focus has been on us just trying to be the best version of ourselves.

“By no means have we arrived. We had a great win, a great 45 minutes, but we still have plenty of room to grow into.”

WVU basketball takes on Louisville in the Battle 4 Atlantis semifinals at noon on Thursday.

For a related story, WVU basketball fans are energized after the win over Gonzaga.