WVU Mountaineers Falter In Second Half, Lose To Sooners
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MORGANTOWN -- Some games are over before they begin.
Analytics, which is all the rage of this era, shows it -- all the statistical trends pointing in one direction.
You might say that West Virginia's game with Oklahoma on Wednesday night pointed toward the 77-63 victory the Sooners pulled off, but this was more the "pyscholytics" outweighing even the analytics.
WVU was walking into a loaded gun.
Consider:
Oklahoma was 13-3, ranked 15th in the nation. WVU was 6-10 coming in, and even though they were coming off their first Big 12 victory of the year at home, Oklahoma had the dynamic of having dropped out of the Top 10 in the country with a two-game losing streak, falling to two top Big 12 games.
That'll get your dander up.
Oklahoma was 10-0 in the Lloyd Noble Center, had won 81% of its games in the building overall and had the third-best home record in the Big 12.
This was the first game with students back since the holiday break, and that was key, to be welcomed home with a wild crowd after those two losses.
"I'm really excited the students are back. Sometimes you're playing three games during the break. I know with the weather, they got off school so they should be nice and rested. I can't wait to see the student section. They make a difference," Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said.
And then the key factor may have been the beer. No, WVU didn't partake at halftime, but you can bet the crowd did. When the fans walked into the arena, they found additional beer stands selling $2 beers.
Think of $2 beers at the Coliseum, if you can.
"There's some good promotional things. I think everybody loved the $2 beers. That's got to be a nice little thing," Moser said.
The Oklahoma coach even had a hand in the beer sales.
" I control what I can control," Moser said in his pregame press conference. "I got hit on social media that there weren't enough beer stands, so there's going to be more beer stands at the game so people don't have to worry about waiting too long in line for the $2 beers, hopefully."
And there was West Virginia.
As good as Oklahoma has been at home is as tough as it's been on the Mountaineers on the road. WVU was 0-5 on the road.
This was no ordinary road trip. The weather in Morgantown forced them to take a bus to Pittsburgh. They had a delay and had to watch film in a rented room. They arrived late in Norman and didn't get their practice in.
It showed in the game.
"We weren't there tonight," Coach Josh Eilert said. "Our minds were a step slow. Our bodies were a step slow. If that's the case, you're going to get beat. They played an extraordinary game, but a lot of this is on us.
"We didn't rebound whatsoever," Eilert said. "We credited it with the win against Texas. Everybody rebounded. "This league is so tough defensively in the halfcourt. I told our guys, if we can't get some fast break points and second-chance points, it's a struggle."
Well, guess what? West Virginia had two fast break points and six second-chance points -- all of them by Pat Suemnick, who had the only three offensive rebounds WVU took down.
The Mountaineers had only 19 total rebounds.
The first half was intriguing in that WVU led for a while and stayed with Oklahoma, doing a strong defensive job in holding them to just 38% percent shooting.
But the second half started with a big-time slam dunk from Jalon Moore and the Sooners just ran with it, shooting 63.6% in the second half.
Meanwhile, WVU's offense really never materialized until it was too late and the Mountaineers were down 20.
it was a particularly tough evening on RaeQuan Battle, scoring only 12 points and on 4 of 13 shooting with 2 of 8 from 3.
"He regressed from the previous game. He's trying to help any way he can, but we have to get the ball out of his hands," Eilert said.
Oklahoma, like everyone else, is really keying on him and he was forcing shots on a night when they just weren't there. At the same time, he also had a difficult time on defense as Oklahoma victimized him numerous times for scores.