Benjamin Powell/The Dominion Post
WVU ahead Brenen Lorient drives to the basket in opposition to Wake Forest on Saturday.
CHARLESTON – Ross Hodge wanted a Help Wanted signal hung over the WVU bench Saturday. It would have stood for each the Mountaineers’ offense and protection, as Wake Forest dominated in the second half for a 75-66 victory contained in the Charleston Coliseum.
As it at all times does with Hodge, WVU’s protection is the place the story begins, and it was nowhere near the place it wanted to be. The Demon Deacons (7-3) shot 51% (29 of 57), the primary crew to attach above 50% in opposition to WVU all season.
Wake Forest sophomore guard Juke Harris was a human dagger. Every time WVU threatened to get again into the sport, Harris countered with one in every of seven 3-pointers that paved the best way to his 28 factors.
“He’s one of the most improved players in all of college basketball from his freshman to sophomore season,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes stated. “He made some big-time shots tonight, and he made them through physicality, too.”
WVU (7-3) bought as shut as 61-56 with 5:30 remaining in the sport. Wake Forest used the ultimate 5 minutes placing on a pick-and-roll clinic with both Tre’Von Spillers or Omaha Biliew getting dunks.
“I don’t want to discredit (Wake Forest), because they are a good team, but we made a lot of internal mistakes within the team,” stated WVU guard Honor Huff, who led the Mountaineers with 24 factors. “We tried to make quite a lot of adjustments all through the course of the sport, particularly in the direction of the tip and we simply botched them.
“I botched one with Chance (Moore). We were supposed to switch out and they got a slip to the basket. That’s on me. We talked about that right before it happened, so it’s not on the coaching staff. It’s on us. We had a lot of mishaps during the game where we just botched the coverage.”
Wake Forest hit 10 3-pointers and scored 25 factors off of WVU’s 17 season-high turnovers.
“There’s a lot of things you can point to,” Hodge stated. “We weren’t fundamental enough and got sped up in some different areas. Seventeen turnovers is something for a team that had been a low-turnover team to this point. If you’re going to turn the ball over 17 times and not shoot the ball well, then you have to be elite defensively. We had some moments where we were good, but not good enough in the second half.”
The different facet to this loss was WVU’s scoring choices had whittled down to simply Huff and Moore. Huff’s 24 factors got here off a school-record 17 3-point makes an attempt in a single sport, which surpassed the earlier mark of 15 set by Jonathan Hargett, Javon Small and Kerr Kriisa.
Huff made 5 of these 17 makes an attempt and took 20 pictures for the sport. Moore added 16 factors and took 11 pictures. Combined, the duo took 60% of West Virginia’s pictures.
Meanwhile, Treysen Eaglestaff didn’t try a single one, together with passing up a attainable lay-up halfway by means of the second half to as an alternative go the ball. The ball bought knocked away for one more turnover.
WVU heart Harlan Obioha made the primary shot of the second half that gave the Mountaineers their solely lead after halftime after which by no means tried one other shot the remainder of the sport. WVU ahead Brenen Lorient additionally didn’t try a shot in the second half. He was charged with committing six turnovers for the sport.
All three starters have been a scoring risk at different factors in the season. Against Wake Forest, all three principally sat and watched from the bench in the second half.
It’s at all times been my philosophy and it’s at all times type of been our identification that even when you’re not capturing the ball nicely, when you simply deal with the ball and execute defensively …” Hodge started. “You can’t do both. You can’t give up 41 points in the second half and turn the ball over and miss shots and miss free throws. You can’t do all of that.”
So, WVU’s choices have been principally Huff capturing it from deep – one in every of his threes got here from the GoMart emblem some 30 toes away – or Moore driving to the basket. It wasn’t practically sufficient.
“We thought their main option was to drive it and get fouled or rebound it,” Forbes stated. “I assumed we did a very good job of controlling the large fella (Obioha). It’s understanding your personnel and never getting stretched.
“When Honor Huff starts making those threes, everybody gets stretched and those driving lanes open. I thought we did a pretty good job of staying in those lanes and stripping and ripping.”