Mountaineers Now Postgame Show: Iowa State 71, WVU 64
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello everybody, it is the Mountaineers Now post game show
00:12 brought to you by Country Roads AirDug Cleaning.
00:15 Take me home to comfort.
00:16 I'm Skylar Callahan.
00:18 Going solo on this post game show is Chris
00:20 is at the West Virginia baseball game here in Charlotte.
00:24 She's got you covered on that.
00:25 West Virginia winners in game one there.
00:28 Game two is just now getting underway.
00:30 As far as the basketball game is concerned,
00:32 they fall 71 to 64 to number six, Iowa State on the road.
00:37 And before I dive into my thoughts on this one,
00:39 let's go and take a look here at the numbers.
00:41 West Virginia shot 27 to 46 on the day.
00:45 Low field goal attempts,
00:46 obviously because of the turnover numbers there
00:48 that you see at 23 that set a single game high
00:52 for the season.
00:53 They actually outshot Iowa State from the field,
00:56 but those turnovers proved to be a major difference
01:00 in this game.
01:01 Kobe Johnson with 12 points, three boards and two assists,
01:05 while Jesse Edwards goes for 10 points and eight rebounds.
01:09 Tamen Lipsy, 14 points and six assists for the Cyclones.
01:14 So obviously it was a great start for the Mountaineers.
01:17 They couldn't have really scripted a better start.
01:20 They get out to the 11-2 lead.
01:22 Everything looks like, I wouldn't say great,
01:25 but that's about as good as you could want
01:27 coming out of that start,
01:29 where you don't have the crowd as much into it.
01:32 Seemed like Iowa State took them a little while
01:35 to really figure out what was going on
01:37 with that two-three zone.
01:39 Once they figured it out,
01:41 that momentum flipped like instantly.
01:44 And I don't know what it was that they really found.
01:48 I think they just moved the ball a little bit better.
01:50 They weren't as stagnant.
01:52 And they found the soft spot of the zone,
01:54 getting the ball to the middle, kicking it out,
01:56 and found some success there
01:59 in the late portion of the first half.
02:01 Second half, similar start.
02:04 West Virginia gets out to, I believe, a 7-2 run.
02:07 Iowa State kind of slows it down a little bit,
02:09 but then they go on the 8-0 run.
02:10 They take the lead, 51-50.
02:13 And halfway through the second half,
02:15 you're thinking this team's got a chance.
02:17 I mean, you really kind of want to get to that under-four mark
02:20 before you really start thinking an upset could happen.
02:24 But it looked like it was just going to be
02:27 one of those days where Iowa State
02:28 was going to have to fight scrap and claw
02:30 all the way to the finish line
02:32 to be able to fight off the Mountaineers.
02:34 And once they made that 8-0 run,
02:37 timeout, Iowa State comes back out.
02:40 They do their thing.
02:41 They go on a 14-0 run because of the turnovers,
02:44 ill-advised quick time shots early in the shot clock.
02:48 And that pretty much put the dagger in.
02:50 Now, I don't know what happened there at the end.
02:54 They get the three.
02:55 It's all of a sudden a seven-point ball game.
02:57 You would think that they would try to trap
02:59 to force a turnover.
03:01 And once they got the ball across midcourt,
03:05 I don't know if there was a miscommunication
03:09 between the bench and the five on the floor
03:12 or what was going on there.
03:14 Why do you not foul?
03:15 Once the ball's brought up across half court,
03:18 you have to foul.
03:19 It's a three-possession game.
03:21 It's not like it's completely out of hand.
03:24 It's not really decided just yet.
03:26 You send the guy to the line.
03:28 If he makes one of two, you're still in it.
03:30 Even if he, especially if he misses both shots,
03:33 you've got a chance to go down there
03:34 and make it a two-possession game.
03:36 So I don't know what that was all about.
03:39 I think Kurt Kreese had tried to foul at one point early on,
03:43 but then they just settled.
03:45 And then the three, or the shot attempt went up.
03:47 Farrakhan gets bumped off his legs,
03:50 and they run out the rest of the clock.
03:52 So crazy last five, six minutes or so
03:57 of the game for the Mountaineers.
03:58 It just felt like once Iowa State got their footing
04:02 after they lost the lead, it was all downhill
04:07 from that point on.
04:08 And West Virginia just could never recover.
04:10 I'll say this.
04:12 I give them credit for the fight that they put up.
04:16 This is a really good team.
04:17 I mean, this is one of the best teams, obviously,
04:20 in the Big 12, but also in the country.
04:22 And I think it's going to be somebody
04:23 that could be a dark horse to go to a Final Four,
04:26 especially in Elite Eight.
04:28 This team is really good defensively,
04:30 as you saw today, 23 turnovers.
04:32 A lot of those were unforced.
04:35 But some of those unforced turnovers
04:38 were because of how fast they make you play.
04:41 They speed you up.
04:42 And that's one of the things I highlighted in the game recap,
04:46 is when you go back to watch and you watch West Virginia's
04:50 win over UCF, that was a completely different look
04:54 offensively.
04:55 That was West Virginia moving the ball
04:58 and playing with a quicker pace.
05:00 They had an emphasis on playing faster, but a smooth fast.
05:04 They dictated the tempo in that one.
05:07 This game, they were sped up.
05:09 They did not want to play as fast as they were
05:13 having to play in this game.
05:14 They were getting double teamed.
05:16 They were getting trapped in the half court.
05:18 They were just really up in West Virginia's grill
05:20 from the moment the ball tipped off.
05:22 And that made West Virginia uncomfortable.
05:24 They forced, again, some bad shots early in the shot clock.
05:28 And they were just never really able to find a rhythm.
05:30 And I don't know if it's something
05:32 to do with just not being in the friendly confines
05:34 of the Coliseum or what.
05:36 But when this team gets on the road, those struggles,
05:41 they go and double or triple in the amount of length
05:45 when they go in these scoring droughts.
05:47 A two or three minute scoring drought
05:48 turns into a five or six minute scoring drought on the road.
05:51 That's what happened today.
05:52 That six minute scoring drought where Iowa State went
05:56 on the 14-0 run, that killed the game right there.
05:59 That cannot happen.
06:01 The other part of it is, defensively,
06:04 I would say for the most part of the game,
06:07 they played fairly well.
06:09 But there's some spots where it just
06:12 makes you scratch your head, like how is Milan Mamavilic--
06:18 I guess I'll just try to pronounce it there.
06:20 But he got open way too many times beyond the three.
06:23 Luckily, he didn't connect on as many as he probably should have.
06:26 But how he gets open, I mean, he's a knockdown shooter.
06:30 You got to get a hand in his face.
06:31 You got to contest those shots.
06:33 And same thing with Tame Lips.
06:34 I mean, you can't let this guy get open.
06:38 And I think also transition defense,
06:41 it's been a problem all year for West Virginia,
06:43 especially when there's turnovers.
06:45 But there's not the hustle.
06:47 I haven't necessarily seen that in recent games
06:51 where the effort or the hustle wasn't there.
06:54 Today, I kind of saw it on a handful of occasions
06:57 where there was just some guys loafing getting back.
07:01 If you want to upset the number six team on the road,
07:05 you got to play with full effort and get your butt back
07:08 and stop the ball.
07:09 So I think it's encouraging.
07:13 I think that you see what they were
07:15 able to do in the first 30 to 32 minutes of the game.
07:18 The last seven or eight minutes of that game
07:20 was about what we saw just about every other night
07:25 this team takes the floor, again,
07:26 when it's not inside the WVU call scene.
07:29 So tough way for them to finish, falling 71 to 64.
07:34 They get back in action on Monday night at Kansas State.
07:38 Another tough one.
07:40 So we'll see how that one goes.
07:41 But that's going to do it for us here today as West Virginia
07:44 again falls 71 to 64.
07:46 I'm Skylar Callen.
07:47 Make sure you hit that Subscribe button
07:48 on YouTube at Mountaineers.
07:49 Now give us a like and a follow on X at the same handle.
07:53 And also, don't forget to check out the game recap of game two
07:57 of West Virginia and Charlotte as Chris
07:59 has got that coverage for you on the baseball diamond.
08:02 So that'll do it for us.
08:03 And we'll check back here with you Monday night
08:05 for West Virginia and Kansas State.
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08:14 (upbeat music)