The West Virginia Mountaineers have been facing some serious shooting struggles as of late.
WVU entered the season with a pair of touted three-point shooters in Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff, and there were a number of games early in the season where various player stepped up and demonstrated some significant prowess from behind-the-arc. But in recent weeks, the Mountaineers have gone cold from deep.
In the seven games since the Arizona State game, where the Mountaineers hit 11 three-point shots, West Virginia has been relatively abysmal from deep. They have taken at least 19 attempts in every game, but have made more than six three-pointers just once.
Overall, they have gone just 37-of-154 from three-point range in their last seven outings, which is good for just 24% of their attempts. During Wednesday's loss to Utah, which put a damper on the team's NCAA Tournament hopes, the Mountaineers went just 5-of-23 from deep,
While shooting struggles are something that Hodge has deflected from as one of the main issues, these types of performances are not sufficient if the Mountaineers want to find success during the final stretch of the season particularly with the way this team was built.
WVU currently ranks 15th of 16 teams in the Big 12 this season in three-point field goal percentage at 33.4%. When taking just conference games into account, the Mountaineers drop to dead last in the league, making just 30.9% of their shots from behind-the-arc. Not exactly what you were expecting from a team that features the top returning three-point shooter in Division 1? Well, you're probably not the only one.
You can't compete at a high level in the Big 12 without a somewhat efficient three-point game, and players such as Huff and Eaglestaff were brought into the progrm specifically for their scoring talents. So to see these struggles during the latter portion of the season is not encouraging, to say the least. Hopefully, it's an issue the Mountaineers find a solution for as they are set to enter the final portion of their schedule.