MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Soft defense and puny rebounding aren’t trademarks of Bob Huggins’ teams, so you can imagine how that combination soured him after West Virginia’s 82-75 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday.
“When we’re good, we work our butts off. We didn’t,” he said.
Though Oklahoma State is a fast-climbing team with the nation’s second-most efficient offense according to the KenPom ratings, its 62.5-percent shooting was hard to swallow. That’s only the third time in five seasons West Virginia has allowed an opponent to eclipse 60 percent.
Jeffrey Carroll put on a shooting exhibition with 15 points in the first 4:02, taking advantage of too-slow closeouts.