The West Virginia Mountaineers have to find a way to be better at the start of games, or they'll soon see their postseason hopes crash and burn.
WVU basketball has struggled in multiple different games over the month of January to get off on the right foot, and while some of those games saw the Mountaineers turn things around and pull out victories (Arizona State and Kansas State come to mind), others have not ended well for West Virginia.
Early game slump spells disaster for Mountaineers
The latter scenario was the case for the Mountaineers on Saturday, as they dropped their first home game of the season against Baylor, falling to the Bears 63-53 in their fourth Big 12 loss of the year. West Virginia once again got off to a slow start, scoring just five points in the first five minutes of play and falling behind by as many as 10 points.
The Mountaineers would, per usual, bounce back with a hot stretch and take the lead at one point in the first half, but another sluggish period of play to close out the half saw Baylor re-take the lead and extend it back to double-digits once again before entering the break with an eight-point lead.
And while in games like the wins over Arizona State and Kansas State, the Mountaineers were able to ride rallies to comeback victories, the two first half slumps would haunt WVU on Saturday. Because that rally that has seemed inevitable in recent games for the program never came, and they shot significantly worse from the field in the second half en route to defeat.
And while the first half alone can't be the sole blame for WVU's loss against Baylor, one can't help but think what things might have looked like if the Mountaineers hadn't faced multiple double-digit deficits before the game was halfway finished. And after the game, WVU head coach Ross Hodge shared those sentiments.
"Can't continuously start as slow as we have the last four games. Accidents happen. Problems occur. But this is the fourth straight game where we started with a double-digit [deficit]," Hodge said. "So many things have to go right for you to dig yourself out of that hole. You can't do that consistently. I just thought we started out too casual on defense to start."