Cover Photo: AP
Cincinnati, Ohio – The West Virginia Mountaineers (6-2) fell apart late to lose to Xavier (6-3), 84-74 in the Big East/Big 12 Challenge.
Following the game, head coach Bob Huggins was clearly unhappy with his team’s performance, particularly late in the second half. Here’s what Coach Huggins had to say after the loss:
“We didn’t guard and we didn’t make shots in the second half. We had a chance to stay in the game and we missed consecutive shots. They went on the other end and they made consecutive shots. We didn’t play defense. They played defense.
It’s all about attitude. We were a totally different team in the second half. We got in foul trouble. We didn’t come back and respond in the way that you would hope that they would.
We missed so many layups. We missed so many second-chance points. We missed wide open jump shots. We didn’t capitalize on what we should have.
The reality is, we gave them obviously too many second shots. We got second shots and we didn’t finish them. We missed way too many free throws. They made shots at the end and we didn’t.
I hope our guys learned that I’m not going to put the West Virginia fans through what they went through last year. These guys have maybe one more chance and then we’ll find guys that do what is asked of them. We’ll clean it up.”
