Mountaineers look to continue building momentum in home matchup with Oklahoma State

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Fresh off the program’s first win in its 12th try at Allen Fieldhouse, West Virginia is riding high ahead of Saturday’s noon home matchup with Oklahoma State, one that will air on CBS Sports Network and marks the Mountaineers’ first Big 12 home game. 

First-year WVU head coach Darian DeVries knows his team’s most recent victory, a 62-61 triumph at seventh-ranked Kansas, will likely stand out above any others this season in terms of win quality. Yet DeVries is also stressing that the importance of it becomes diminished if the Mountaineers don’t follow it up with another victory in league play against the Cowboys.

“From the coaches perspective, we understand that was one 40-minute game,” DeVries said. “We appreciate how hard that win is to get in Allen Fieldhouse. We’re not taking away from that by any means, and we also know that was a great moment for us, but we have a new task at hand. We turned that page pretty quickly. We enjoyed it for the appropriate amount of time. Now we have another Big 12 opponent coming in. In basketball, you don’t get much time to celebrate. Win or lose, you just can’t hang on to it very long.”

Minus Tucker DeVries for a fourth straight game and without Amani Hansberry for the first time in his WVU career, the Mountaineers were missing 33 percent of their scoring and 31 percent of their rebounding, but never trailed against the Jayhawks. Guard Javon Small made the second of two free throws with 1.8 seconds remaining to break a 61-all tie and give West Virginia (10-2, 1-0) its third victory against a ranked foe this season, while handing KU its 13th setback in 174 Big 12 games at that venue under head coach Bill Self.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” said WVU swingman Toby Okani, who scored seven points against the Jayhawks and is one of three Mountaineers to start all 12 games this season. “That atmosphere was amazing. The crowd was crazy. I could barely hear myself think.”

With three days between the marquee win on New Year’s Eve and Big 12 home opener, the Mountaineers had little time to savor the result.

“Hopefully after the season, you can look back and reflect on it and appreciate it a lot more,” DeVries said. “From a coach’s perspective, in a sport like basketball where you’re playing every three days, you have to have that discipline to move on.“

Like the Mountaineers, Oklahoma State (8-4, 0-1) is under the direction of a new head coach in Steve Lutz, who once worked alongside DeVries from 2010-17 while both were assistants at Creighton.

“They’re very aggressive, especially defensively,” DeVries said. “They create a lot of turnovers because of their aggressiveness and they do a great job of getting to the rim and drawing fouls. They play to those strengths. They attack in transition every possession — make or miss.”

The Cowboys last played Monday when they fell to 14th-ranked Houston, 60-47. The Cowboys’ previous season-low point total had been 65 in a loss to Oklahoma, and their average of 76.3 points is on par with WVU’s 76.2.

However, the Mountaineers rank third among 16 Big 12 teams in scoring defense by surrendering 63.6 points on average, while OSU is next-to-last in the league in that category at 73.4 points. Opponents are shooting 46 percent against the Cowboys and just 37.4 percent against WVU, which could be welcome news to the Mountaineers as they strive to overcome scoring droughts that DeVries feels have become too common.

“We’ve had those droughts in all different styles of games where we go 3, 4 minutes without a basket,” DeVries said. “It’s a little bit to do with some of our movement and things at times. Maybe we can get a little tired on the offensive end, because we do expend a lot of energy on the defensive end. We can stand a little bit and that’s something we have to get better at. Even little subtle moments sometimes can help your offense out. Those are things we continue to focus on and try to find ways to do it while trying to still keep the pieces in the right places at the same time.”

For Small, Saturday’s game marks a matchup against his former team, with the Mountaineers’ leader in scoring, assists and steals having spent last season playing for the Cowboys. Through 12 games at West Virginia, Small is the Big 12’s top scorer at 19.2 points to go with 4.9 assists.

It remains to be seen if DeVries will miss a fifth straight contest and Hansberry a second straight, or if guard Jayden Stone makes his WVU debut. Stone suffered an injury late in preseason, but warmed up and was dressed to play for the first time at Kansas.

“Everybody’s getting closer,” DeVries said. “We’re doing everything we can to get everybody back on the floor as soon as possible.” 

Oklahoma State has seven players averaging more than seven points, though only two — Marchelus Avery and Abou Ousmane — average double-figure scoring. Avery, a 6-foot-8 forward, is tops on the squad with 12.3 points, while the 6-10 Ousmane has an 11.5 scoring average. The duo also leads the team in rebounding with Ousmane averaging 5.5 boards and Avery 5.4.

The Cowboys have a plus-6.3 rebounding margin, while the Mountaineers rank last in the Big 12 in that category at plus-0.2.

“There’s no question we have some limitations and we understand that,” DeVries said. “We know what our margin of error is. Anytime you have guys out, the margin gets even smaller. We know what we have to do to be successful and if we don’t do those things on any given night, we’re probably not going to be. We have to continue to make that our No. 1 priority every day in practice of this is how we have to win. If we do those things, then we’ll give ourselves a chance. There’s not much variation that can take place for us to have a chance to be successful.”