The West Virginia Mountaineers made the trek to College Park on Saturday to open the men's basketball season with an exhibition against the Maryland Terrapins in a meeting between Power 5 opponents both looking to make it to the NCAA Tournament this season after missing last spring.
The Terrapins would end up securing a 90-81 win over the Mountaineers in a closely-fought game which required an overtime period to settle, but ultimately the result won't matter when it comes to the regular season. But what will matter is what we learned about West Virginia in their first real competitive showing against Power 5 competition this year. And for the most part, it was good news.
What we learned about the West Virginia Mountaineers in exhibition against Maryland
The first thing we learned is that the Mountaineers look like a serious contender for the NCAA Tournament. Some people might scoff at the statement, because the Mountaineers lost this exhibition against a program that went 12-21 last season.
But remember Maryland coach Buzz Williams has led three different power conference programs to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, and the Terrapins are projected to be a massive turnaround team this season. So it's possible this should be viewed as an exhibition against an NCAA Tournament team.
And West Virginia led by 15 at halftime and managed to still take the Terrapins to overtime before losing. And there were a lot of thing that looked good about the Mountaineers in the process. Finley Bizjack went 6-for-13 from the field and 5-for-8 from three-point range in his debut for the Mountaineers, looking like the next coming of Honor Huff.
Miles Sadler lived up to his hype, scoring 16 points and leading the team with four assists, with his quickness and ability to beat opponents and get to the rim on full display. Amadou Seini played extended minutes and had six points and 11 rebounds. Seydou Traore has 13 points, six rebounds, and three blocks. Martin Somerville added 13 points of his own.
The Mountaineers shot went 22-of-24 from the charity stripe, good for a 92% shooting percentage, and scored 46 first half points. They scored 32 points off the bench, and went 9-deep into the lineup consistently throughout the game. In the first half, they shot 47% from deep range and had just one turnover.
Defensively, they had 10 steals and 10 blocks, and forced 16 turnovers. There's a lot to like there.
The negative that should not be ignored about West Virginia's loss
But let's not ignore the fact that there were certainly things that needed to be fixed after seeing West Virginia's first competitive clash on the year.
What jumps out to me immediately is that the Mountaineers led 46-31 at halftime and ended up getting outscored 59-34 in the second half and overtime. Last season, a constant problem for West Virginia was the slow start that could not be recovered from, or the strong start that falters before falling apart late in the game. The exhibition loss to Maryland was a prime example of the latter.
West Virginia also was dominated on the boards, getting outrebounded 48-37. The Mountaineers are going to have to do a better job rebounding if they want to compete against the top teams in the Big 12. There's no way around that.
And 13 turnovers in the second half won't cut it either. The Mountaineers still emerged on top when it came to the turnover battle, but the fact that there is a version of this team that can turn the ball over 13 times in a half is concerning, to say the least.
Add us as a preferred source on Google