Desperation a factor on both sides as Mountaineers set for clash with Bearcats

CINCINNATI — West Virginia put itself in good position to earn an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament by winning 13 of its first 17 games, including four victories over ranked foes, three of which were in the top 10 at the time.

For that to still be the case in the near future, the Mountaineers need to put an end to a losing streak that’s stretched three games over the last two weeks.

The first opportunity comes at 2 p.m. Sunday in a matchup with Cincinnati at Fifth Third Arena that will be carried by ESPN+.

“It’s a long season and it’s a grind. We still have 11 games left, so there are lots of opportunities to go win games,” first-year WVU head coach Darian DeVries said. “They’ve put themselves in a good position to survive a stretch like this where you go through a three-game losing streak, but at some point you have to put the brakes on and we have to get back on the other side of that column. Every night, there’s an opportunity going forward where it’s a Quad 1, Quad 2-type gam,  and we have to win our share of those.”

During the skid, which began with a home loss to Arizona State, continued with a setback at Kansas State and most recently included another home loss to No. 6 Houston, WVU has struggled defensively and suffered through three of its five lowest-scoring games this season.

The Mountaineers (13-7, 4-5) have fallen to 15th in scoring among Big 12 Conference teams at 70.1 points on average — one spot behind the Bearcats and their average of 71. In Big 12 play, WVU remains 15th with an average of 61 points, while UC falls to last in the league with a mark of 60.7.

West Virginia guard Javon Small remains the Big 12’s leading scorer with an average of 19.1 points, though he’s been held in check twice during the skid, totaling 22 points in the losses to the Sun Devils and Cougars. Small is consistently draw the bulk of attention from opposing defenses that often includes sending double teams his way in an effort to make another Mountaineer beat them.

“We did a lot of stuff tonight with Javon off the ball to try and get it back to him and get him on the move a little bit more,” DeVries said of his season-low eight-point effort against Houston, which came on only seven field-goal attempts. “Houston is a good defense and they’re able to show another guy out or switch it to keep him from coming off clean. But we did get those switches, because he was going to come off clean or get an open three and that gave us some advantages on the interior. Something to build on for us as we continue to try to find different ways to utilize all the guys that are out there.”

After trailing the Cougars 39-19 at halftime, West Virginia scored the first 11 points of the second half and was within five with more than 6 minutes remaining, before falling short down the stretch.

Still, DeVries liked much of what his team displayed over the final 20 minutes in a matchup against one of the nation’s top teams, which included disruptive defense that helped create transition offense and led to 12-for-21 shooting.

“I told them to leave this building tonight only focused on what it looked and it felt like in the second half,” DeVries said. “Make that their mindset again and approach as we go into practice and get ready for Cincinnati. That team in that 15-minute stretch, we’ll take anywhere, because they’ll go compete and line up and go do some things that can be pretty special.”

For as much as the Mountaineers are in need of a win, Cincinnati (12-8, 2-7) could be even more desperate after following up two Big 12 victories with three straight losses, including setbacks at BYU and Utah over the last week.

The Bearcats began their second season in the Big 12 with a No. 20 national ranking, but have struggled mightily since completing their non-conference schedule with 10 wins in 11 games.

Four players average double-figure scoring for UC, though the Bearcats do not have a player among the top 25 scoring leaders in the Big 12.

Simas Lukosius leads the squad with an average of 12.2 points. He does a large portion of his damage from the perimeter and 47 of his 85 field goals are three-pointers.

Guard Jizzle James and swingman Dan Skillings Jr. follow at 10.8 points, while Texas transfer Dillon Mitchell averages 10.6 points and provides defensive versatility with his abundance of athleticism.

With the exception of Lukosius, UC has struggled shooting from long range and its 31.7 percent shooting on triples is ahead of only TCU in the Big 12. Excluding Lukosius, the Bearcats are shooting 29.6 percent on threes.

UC has won 12 of 23 all-time meetings against the Mountaineers, including six of eight in Cincinnati and four or five at Fifth Third Arena.