WVU basketball: Press Virginia is no longer viable

The WVU basketball team is no longer Press Virginia, according to head coach Bob Huggins.

The Mountaineers, who made a name for themselves on defense the past few seasons, can’t seem to stop anybody during this part of season. Other teams are shooting well against the WVU basketball team and rallying against it without fear.

Iowa State picked apart the Mountaineers all night by getting points in transition and easily breaking the press. West Virginia only forced eight turnovers against the Cyclones. That’s the lowest amount against any team this season.

Iowa State is a smart and disciplined team under the coaching of Steve Prohm. This year appeared to be a down campaign, but this impressive win against the Mountaineers shows that the Cyclones are truly still a force that can beat any team on any given night.

They had the best gameplan to beat the Mountaineers out of any team who has already defeated them this season. Even though West Virginia’s problems were easily identified, it now appears that it has more issues than originally intended.

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The only thing that the WVU basketball team did better in this game than in the past was not getting into foul trouble. Lamont West and Jevon Carter each had three fouls. The guard play may have been hurt by the absence of Daxter Miles, but Chase Harler saw more time as a starter and James Bolden played 26 minutes. They couldn’t muster up any real impact, though.

West Virginia will still win some games this season, but nobody could have really expected this to happen after how well they’ve looked in the early part of the Big 12 schedule. The ISU loss was different than the other five this season because the Mountaineers didn’t really have a good lead in it. ISU’s largest lead was 20 and the WVU basketball never led.

Next: All-time WVU basketball team

Bob Huggins was brash as usual after the game and even said his team “singlehandedly destroyed Press Virginia.” Supposedly, it was fun while it lasted. It would be a real shame if this was the end of the era.