Bob Huggins critical of Erik Stevenson's comments on lack of intensity from teammates

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins wasn’t having it after guard Erik Stevenson called out his teammates following a 78-72 home loss to Texas Tech on Saturday. Stevenson claimed postgame that the team had “no energy,” resulting in some pushback form Huggins in his postgame press conference.

“He shot it 21 times,” the coach retorted. “He had to have some energy.”

When the reporter followed up to explain that Stevenson’s comments weren’t necessarily about himself, but the rest of the team, Huggins again shut it down.

“Oh, it was OK for him to go 9-for-21 though?” he asked. “Please.”

Stevenson led the Mountaineers with 27 points in the loss, finishing 6-of-14 from 3-point range. WVU led 63-55 with a little more than eight minutes to go, but allowed the Red Raiders to go on an 11-0 from there to retake the lead.

West Virginia was outrebounded 39-28, including 15-10 on the offensive glass. Bob Huggins harped on that, seeming to agree with Erik Stevenson that the team lacked effort at least in that regard.

“We’re up eight,” he said. “All we’ve gotta do is take care of the ball. Run good offense. They wanted to play zone. That crew wanted to play zone. So we switched to a 2-3 zone and it didn’t work. Then we go to the free throw line and we’ve got guys just standing there watching the ball. Never went to rebound. I don’t have an explanation for that. As long as I’ve done this, I don’t have an explanation of why you would stand there and not rebound a miss.”

Huggins went on to say that the Mountaineers let up after getting the eight-point lead. WVU scored just nine points after achieving the advantage with 8:41 to play and was held without a field goal over the final 3:17.

“When we got the eight-point lead, I honestly think we had some guys relax,” Huggins said. “I mean, how do you explain a guy on the inside not even moving on the foul line to block out the guy next to him? I can’t explain that. Obviously, that’s something that you practice. I don’t know.”

The loss dropped West Virginia to 15-12 (4-10 Big 12). With just four games remaining, the Mountaineers now find themselves in dangerous territory on the bubble. They’ll face ranked teams in three of their final four games, so opportunity will still be there to break through, especially given how tough a league the Big 12 has been.

A matchup against another Big 12 bubble team, Oklahoma State, next awaits WVU at 7 p.m. ET on Monday in Morgantown.