Bob Huggins analyzes West Virginia's growth in Big 12 play

West Virginia got off to an atrocious start in Big 12 play this season, losing their first five contests before finally picking up a win. However, over the last couple weeks, the Mountaineers are playing pretty good basketball. They never really played too poorly, but the close losses finally started turning into close wins as of late.

WVU head coach Bob Huggins believes a few different factors led to the rough start and eventual turnaround. First and foremost, making shots has been a huge difference. Per Huggy Bear, West Virginia was just frustratingly inconsistent with easy shots. Missed layups, floaters, free throws — the Mountaineers had a habit of missing the bunnies early on in league play.

“We started out the conference year missing layup after layup. Two-footer after two-footer,” said Huggins after the win over Oklahoma. “We had opportunities to just go to the free throw line and just make one out of three, we made none. We had a chance to win the game at Oklahoma. We barely hit the rim on two of them.”

So that’s one area of the game where WVU has improved dramatically. The other factor for the slow start, according to Huggins, was the lack of experience playing Big 12 basketball across the roster. Sure, it’s a group of mostly seniors, but they’re all transfers, some coming from JuCo or schools much worse than West Virginia in much worse conferences than the Big 12. But once his guys settled in and adapted to the brutal life of playing Big 12 basketball, the wins finally started coming.

“I think we have guys that haven’t played a whole lot in this league and with this kind of setting. I don’t think the majority of these guys…you think the majority of these guys ever played in front of 14,000 people? I think they’re starting to understand. I think they’re starting to feel better about themselves, feel more comfortable.”

The team is certainly playing more comfortably on the court. And, as mentioned, the team is stocked with transfers. So in addition to adapting to Big 12 play, the roster had to gel itself, which takes a while when you’re trying to manage a bunch of veteran newcomers who are all urgent to make their mark on college hoops before their careers come to an end this spring.

Sounds like Huggins is finally getting this group on the same page, and at a perfect time, too.