Texas hits road to tangle with No. 20 West Virginia
Morgantown, WV (SportsNetwork.com) – Up a few spots in the nation rankings from last week, the West Virginia Mountaineers are set to host the Texas Longhorns in Big 12 Conference play on Tuesday night.
Holding down the fourth spot in the league standings entering the week with a record of 9-5, the 20th-ranked Mountaineers have won two straight and three of their last four outings, with only four games remaining before the start of the conference tournament. On Saturday, the team dispensed with Oklahoma State on the road, 73-63.
Meanwhile, the Longhorns find themselves in the bottom half of the standings with a record of 6-8, although they did perform well during the non-conference portion of the campaign and own a 17-10 overall mark as a result. Unfortunately, Texas is in the midst of playing four ranked teams in a row, losing the first two of those to Oklahoma last week (71-69) and Iowa State (85-77) over the weekend. This coming weekend the ‘Horns will challenge eighth-ranked Kansas on the road as well.
As far as the all-time series is concerned, Texas owns a 6-3 edge after pummeling the Mountaineers in the first meeting of the campaign last month in Austin by a score of 77-50. The Longhorns won all three meetings last season, one of those coming in the Big 12 Championship, 66-49.
Kendal Yancy and Isaiah Taylor combined to score 52 of the 77 points put up by Texas over the weekend versus 14th-ranked Iowa State, but it simply wasn’t enough to prevent the Cyclones from blowing by the Longhorns at the Frank Irwin Center. Yancy made good on an impressive 6-of-9 behind the 3-point line, while Taylor handed out seven assists, but other than Myles Turner who pulled down 10 rebounds, the top-scoring duo was provided with very little support by the rest of the unit as the group shot 40.8 percent from the floor and 9-of-24 behind the 3-point line, compared to 12-of-21 on the perimeter by ISU.
Just a sophomore, Yancy has scored in double figures in two straight and three of the last four outings, after posting double digits in just two of the first 23 contests for the Longhorns. In the case of Taylor, he had a stretch of six straight outings in which he scored at least 13 points, but in the three games leading up to the Iowa State battle, he combined to tally just 17 points on 5- of-22 shooting from the floor. Nevertheless, when it comes to scoring against the rest of the Big 12, Taylor is tops on the Longhorns with 13.1 ppg stemming from just 36.9 percent accuracy from the floor and 24.0 percent on the outside.
In a game that featured six ties and eight lead changes, the Mountaineers erased a nine-point deficit in the first half versus OSU over the weekend and generated a 14-point advantage in the second half before settling on the 10- point road win at Gallagher-Iba Arena. Juwan Staten helped seal the victory by posting a game-high 22 points, hitting 9-of-10 shots at the free-throw line, while also handing out seven assists. Gary Browne tacked on 18 points and eight rebounds, followed by Devin Williams with nine points and a game-high 12 boards.
Staten, who has started all 13 conference games in which he has participated, is the top scorer for WVU with his 13.5 ppg, but is not averse to getting his teammates involved in the action, having handed out a team-high 66 assists in those decisions as well. However, as well as Staten can play, his mere 61.9 percent accuracy at the free-throw line is less than optimal and is bringing the team as a whole down to just 63.9 percent. Williams is the only other double-digit scorer with 11.8 ppg and is tops with 9.2 rpg, although the Mountaineers are pretty much breaking even with the competition both in scoring and on the glass.
Categorized in: NCAA Basketball