Slow starts for No. 19 BYU have festered into something more significant lately.
When the Cougars travel to West Virginia, they’ll look to exhibit the form they showed earlier this season in a Big 12 Conference tilt on Saturday in Morgantown, W. Va.
On Tuesday, BYU (20-8, 8-7 Big 12) was throttled in a 97-84 home loss to UCF. The Cougars trailed 52-28 at halftime, and their deficit swelled to 36 points in the second half before a late run made the score look more respectable.
“We were sleepwalking out there,” BYU coach Kevin Young said. “I’m super disappointed in our guys, super disappointed in myself and our coaches. It was a night that was not good all the way around, with every breakdown you could imagine.”
BYU will have to shake that disappointment off as it looks to rebound from losses in six of its last nine games. The Cougars will have to figure things out without third-leading scorer Richie Saunders, who was lost for the season with a torn ACL on Feb. 14.
Missed even more than the 18 points per game Saunders averaged is the leadership he provided on and off the court. AJ Dybantsa (25.1 points), who leads the nation in scoring, and Robert Wright III (18.1 points) offer the Cougars plenty of offensive firepower. But Young wants them to add a new dimension to their games that can’t be measured.
“You miss his intensity; he’s a guy that wakes up ready to just get after it every day in life,” said Young about Saunders. “So we miss his intensity for sure. That’s where Rob and AJ have to grow. They don’t have it in them naturally to be hair-on-fire-type of guys. But when you aren’t naturally that way, when you aren’t naturally a vocal leader, you have to learn to lead sometimes. That’s a challenge they are going through right now, and it’s a growth process for both of them.”
In West Virginia (16-12, 7-8), BYU will face a team desperate for a win. The Mountaineers had the resume of a solid bubble team for the NCAA Tournament. But they have dropped three straight games and are just 2-4 in February.
A 91-84 overtime loss at Oklahoma State on Tuesday was preceded by a 60-54 road loss at TCU. Both teams are orbiting the same fringes of the bubble as the Mountaineers. West Virginia is No. 66 in the national NET rankings and No. 69 in Wins Above Bubble.
While the Mountaineers’ path to the NCAA Tournament has narrowed considerably (they’ve dropped out of most First Four Out and Next Four Out projections), two of their last three games offer resume-building opportunities against BYU and UCF.
Honor Huff (15.5 points) leads four Mountaineers who are scoring in double figures. He played a game-high 45 minutes and led all scorers with 20 points on 6 of 12 shooting from 3-point range against Oklahoma State.
West Virginia is 13-3 at home, and with Huff, Hodge said the Mountaineers have the type of play-making guard that can thrive in March Madness, if they can earn a berth.
“When you watch the NCAA Tournament at the end of the year, it’s usually some little guys running around because it’s so hard to get the ball close to the basket,” said Hodge about Huff, who is a 5-foot-10 senior. “There’s physicality, size and teams defend each other at such a good rate.”
