Bob Huggins says West Virginia had its 'best defensive effort of the year'

West Virginia is coming off an 85-67 win over Oklahoma State on Monday and coach Bob Huggins left nothing ambiguous in calling it the ‘best defensive effort of the year.’

He was proud of how the Mountaineers bounced back after giving a game away against Texas Tech last weekend. He credited assistant Ron Everhart with a great defensive scout of Oklahoma State.

“Ronnie did a good job of scouting report for them and we had two pretty good workouts,” Huggins said. “I thought this was our best defensive effort of the year, probably our most complete effort of the year.”

West Virginia managed to hold Oklahoma State to just 38.5% shooting from the floor and an abysmal 10.5% from 3-point range on 19 attempts.

Huggins thinks the team giving away a winnable game by not executing on the defensive end against Texas Tech led to a more serious approach this time out.

“I just think that they were ready because they know that they gave one away prior,” Huggins said. “We’ve got three more to go, now we’ve got to see what we can do with those three.”

Best defensive effort needed again

For now West Virginia is sitting on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, according to at least one major prognosticator.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has West Virginia in the “Last Four Byes” category in his latest bracketology.

Huggins hasn’t been shy about discussing the stakes down the stretch.

“We had a long talk about basically what we’ve got left, what happens if we win and what happens if we lose,” he said. “And I was very disappointed in our effort the prior game. We’re up eight and we give those eight back in it seemed like a matter of five seconds.”

That won’t cut it if the Mountaineers hope to find themselves firmly in the NCAA Tournament field. But there are definitely some games remaining that could solidify West Virginia’s bid.

The team will travel to No. 3 Kansas, then to No. 23 Iowa State, before returning home for a date with No. 14 Kansas State.

The Kansas game is scheduled for a 4 p.m. ET tipoff on Saturday with a national broadcast on ESPN.