Sooners face West Virginia in Morgantown
The Oklahoma men’s basketball team has struggled so far this season — and it will not get any easier on Wednesday night against No. 7-ranked West Virginia.
NORMAN — Kameron McGusty thinks he knows what to expect at 6 p.m. Wednesday when he makes his first trip to Morgantown, W.Va., to take on No. 7-ranked West Virginia.
“I used to hear about it a lot in high school,” McGusty said. “They’ve always been known for that little press, but I think with preparation we’ll be able to take it on.”
Seeing what the Mountaineers do on television and in scouting reports and facing that during scoutteam work in practice is much different from what it’s like to face it in real time — and in a packed and rowdy WVU Coliseum.
“No one does it as well as West Virginia,” Sooners coach Lon Kruger said of the high-pressure, fullcourt defense that has been employed in recent years by coach Bob Huggins. “They force probably more turnovers than anyone in the country, and they do it in the full court. So it’s very difficult to simulate.”
OU heads to West Virginia with a seemingly dangerous circumstance — a starting lineup that includes two guards who have never faced the relentlessness of the Mountaineers’ defense.
McGusty, a freshman, and Rashard Odomes will be playing against the Mountaineers for the first time. Odomes, a sophomore, didn’t play in any of the three games between the teams last year.
“We’ve just got to stay poised,” McGusty said. “We can’t let them speed us up. The plays that we have for the press, the press break that we have is going to be very efficient. We’ve just got to make sure that we capitalize and cut down on the turnovers and be smarter than they are. If we do all those things, we should come out and have a great game.”
Staying poised, though, isn’t easy against West Virginia. The Mountaineers lead the country with 413 turnovers. That’s more than 30 better than the nation’s No. 2 team — which as of Tuesday had played three fewer games than West Virginia.
An even more telling sign: West Virginia forces turnovers on a nation’sbest 32.7 percent of its defensive possessions.
McGusty realizes it won’t be easy to “do all those things” though.
“In most games, teams are just playing you manto-man, and you’re worried about executing your sets as opposed to this game (where) you’re worried about executing your sets, getting the ball into the frontcourt, making sure you don’t turn it over, looking for traps and trying to find an open man,” McGusty said.
“There’s a lot of things we have to dissect and pick out on their defense, so we definitely have to make sure that we’re focused and locked in and not turning the ball over.”
What OU does have going for it is the recent return of Jordan Woodard to the point.
Woodard has been effective at West Virginia in his career, with 17 assists and just five turnovers in three games in Morgantown. In last season’s win, he had six assists and no turnovers. Isaiah Cousins, who played point, had five assists and just one turnover.
Woodard has tried his best to prepare his lessexperienced teammates for what they’ll face.
“They’re going to try to speed us up,” Woodard said. “I’ve just been saying, ‘You’ve got to be comfortable playing our game.’ It’s going to be more free flow.”