An undermanned West Virginia team proved no match for No. 17 Texas on Saturday.
The Mountaineers were held to six points over the final 10 minutes of the opening half, enabling the Longhorns to turn a tie game into a 19-point halftime lead en route to a 74-59 victory at the Erwin Center.
West Virginia (11-2, 0-1) had its eight-game win streak snapped in the Big 12 Conference opener for both teams. The Mountaineers were without leading scorer Taz Sherman, key reserve Gabe Osabuohien and freshman guard Kobe Johnson, who missed the contest due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
“When you play without the best player in the league, it’s going to affect you. He’s been the best player in the league so far, and then two other guys contribute a lot to us,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “It’s not going to be easy, but that being said, you can’t turn it over 20 times, particularly when they’ve been told since we started practicing what’s going to beat us is ourselves and we can’t turn it over. We’re not going to win turning it over 20 times — especially against them.”
Huggins indicated WVU wouldn’t be at full strength during his media session Friday, and the Mountaineers were down their top performer to this point in the season in Sherman and one of their better defenders and rebounders in Osabuohien.
“Taz and Gabe are our two senior leaders. They’re our veterans so it’s obviously going to be a struggle without them,” sophomore forward Jalen Bridges said. “Kobe brings a lot to the table as well. It was definitely a challenge. We battled, but we weren’t making shots. It happens sometimes.”
Bridges stepped up with the trio out of action, matching his season high with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting. The sophomore made four 3-pointers and tied for the team lead in rebounds with six.
“Taz puts the ball in the hoop at a very high level and without him, that’s a huge dropoff in our scoring,” Bridges said. “I tried to take initiative and step up to make plays to the best of my abilities.”
After baskets from Pauly Paulicap and Isaiah Cottrell tied the game at 14 at the 10:10 mark of the opening half, Texas (11-2, 1-0) yielded only two WVU field goals the remainder of the half to open up a comfortable lead.
Courtney Ramey scored five straight points and Marcus Carr’s triple gave the Longhorns a 22-14 advantage.
Sean McNeil’s jump shot cut the Longhorns’ lead to six, but WVU suffered through a scoring drought of longer than 4 minutes to follow. During that time, Texas rattled off 10 unanswered points, including Carr’s conventional three-point play and Andrew Jones’ 3-pointer that left UT with a 32-16 advantage 3 minutes before the break.
“We did not run offense,” Huggins said. “For whatever reason, I don’t know.”
Texas entered the intermission on top 39-20, and built its lead as large as 55-27 on Carr’s layup with 13:03 left.
The closest WVU got in the second half was the final margin after the Mountaineers closed the game on 13-5 spurt.
Malik Curry scored all 14 of his points after halftime in the loss, while McNeil finished with 12 on 5-of-13 shooting. With Sherman out, McNeil was West Virginia’s lone player in action with a double-figure scoring average.
“They gang up on him, that’s how it makes it more difficult,” Huggins said. “What are they fond of saying in the NBA? Robin and Batman. Batman’s not any good without Robin and Robin stinks without Batman. They get so much more attention, particularly when you’re playing on a team with a bunch of guys who struggle to make shots.”
Freshman forward Jamel King logged his most extensive action of the season in the loss, going scoreless in 11 minutes after playing in only two of 12 games before Saturday.
“I wanted to see what he would do in front of people,” Huggins said. “He’s played pretty well in practice.“
WVU’s 12 first-half turnovers matched Texas’ total for the game.
“We did all the passing drills that I know before we got into the start of practice and it hasn’t helped any,” Huggins said. “We’ll have to come up with something else or sit those guys that continue to turn it over.”
Carr led all players with 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Ramey scored 15 and Jones added 14 in the victory.
With Monday’s originally schedule game at TCU postponed due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols within the Horned Frogs’ program, West Virginia returns to action January 8 when it welcomes Kansas State.
Huggins remains unsure if Sherman, Osabuohien and Johnson will be eligible to play.
“We’ve done everything we can possibly do from our guys taking the booster, and our guys have been fantastic doing everything they can possibly do as far as the protocol,” Huggins said. “We masked up on the plane. We didn’t have to do that, but I asked them to do it and they did it. They’ve been very compliant with everything we’ve asked them to do.
“I don’t know any more than you guys do. You guys are intelligent enough to realize it’s not done at my level. It’s done at the conference level with either the athletic directors or presidents. Guys at my level don’t get a vote.“