Men's Basketball, WVU Sports

NOTEBOOK: Turnovers too costly for West Virginia in loss to Texas

MORGANTOWN — West Virginia committed a season-high 20 turnovers in its 74-59 loss Saturday against No. 17 Texas.

One of them came by not inbounding the ball within five seconds. Another came when an inbounds pass was stolen under the basket and flipped in for an easy lay-up.

Kedrian Johnson had the ball bounce off his leg. Jalen Bridges’ bounce pass from just a few feet away was taken out of the hands of Pauly Paulicap.

All of them turned into an additional 14 points for the Longhorns (11-2, 1-0 Big 12).

BOX SCORE

“They’ve been told since we started official practice that what’s going to beat us is ourselves turning the ball over,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “We’re not going to win turning the ball over 20 times, particularly against a team like that.”

Texas came into the game as the nation’s No. 1-ranked defense, but Huggins said the turnovers were mostly from what WVU players didn’t do, as opposed to what Texas did defensively.

“They didn’t take it from us very much, we threw it to them,” he said. “We have been very careless with the ball from the beginning.”

Huggins said the team has spent time all season on drills to improve passing.

“It hasn’t helped any, so we’re going to have to come up with something else,” Huggins said. “We’re going to have to sit those guys who continue to turn it over.”

Is Texas’ defense as good as its stats say?

“Honestly, I’d say they did a really good job with their scout,” Bridges said. “They had a really good sense for what we were doing and it allowed them to take us out of what we wanted to do.”

Kedrian Johnson injury

COVID-19 protocols forced West Virginia (11-2, 0-1) to play without leading scorer Taz Sherman, as well as forward Gabe Osabuohien and guard Kobe Johnson.

Adding more misery to that list may be the status of starting point guard Kedrian Johnson, who hurt his left leg with 9:20 remaining in the game.

Johnson was sliding to his left while guarding Texas’ Devin Askew.

When Johnson planted his leg, it appeared to buckle hard and Johnson immediately began to limp.

He was helped off the floor, but came back into the game a minute later and played for a few more minutes. Johnson was visibly feeling the effect of the pain when he went back in.

“Keddy got hurt, so thankfully we have another point guard,” Huggins said. “Hopefully he’s back for the next game.”

Taking a look at Jamel King

WVU freshman forward Jamel King played a season-high 11 minutes against Texas. He did not score and missed his only free-throw attempt of the game.

“I wanted to see what he would do in front of people,” Huggins said. “He’s played pretty good in practice. Tried to get him a little bit of game experience.”

News and notes

** Texas came into the game as the top free-throw shooting team in the Big 12. The Longhorns proved that by finishing 15 of 16 (94%) from the line.

** Texas’ leading scorer Timmy Allen was held to eight points on 2 of 6 from the floor. Allen is the younger brother of Teddy Allen, who played at WVU during the 2017-18 season.

** Dimon Carrigan grabbed a season-high nine rebounds for WVU and had three of the Mountaineers’ nine blocked shots.

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