By Bill Nestor
The West Virginia University men’s basketball team is off to a torrid start. In their first dozen games, the Mountaineers hold a 10 and two record. In typical WVU fashion, they beat up on the lesser competition that limped into the Colosseum en route to a seven wins and no loss home record. If you remove Georgetown from the equation, the Mountaineers edged the other six opponents by an average of 27.5 points per game.
Those are the win column pumpers that help elevate the victory total to a respectable number prior to conference play.
The next level of lock-ups provide resume builders. These are non-conference wins that can help push teams on the bubble into the NCAA Tournament. New Head Coach Darian DeVries managed to guide the Mountaineers to a pair of victories over top 25 teams in #24 Arizona and third ranked Gonzaga. In those battles, the coach had his main man leading the charge, his son Tucker DeVries. Tucker scored 42 points and averaged 5.5 rebounds in the wins over the ‘Cats and the ‘Zags.
Tucker DeVries has been out of the lineup for a while and Mountaineer Nation was worried about how this year’s edition would stack up with the powers that be in the Big 12 Conference. New Year’s Eve brought the conference opener and a trip to Lawrence to play the Jayhawks.The expectations were low for West Virginia coming into this tilt, after all the Mountaineers were 0 and 11 all time at Allen Fieldhouse. To stack the odds in Kansas’ favor a little more, the Jayhawks had won 33 consecutive conference openers.
Coach DeVries had his squad prepared to play as they smacked Kansas right in the mouth from the opening tip. West Virginia jumped out to a nine to nothing lead, extended to 13 at the halftime break, and held the Jayhawks to just 20 halftime points.
The 15,300 fans in attendance helped to revive the home team and Kansas would battle back to tie the game at 61 with 15 seconds remaining. The Jayhawks used the foul line to claw back into the affair, going 15 of 17 in the second half and 19 of 21 from the stripe for the game.
With Tucker DeVries out, Oklahoma State transfer Javon Small is the go to guy, averaging 19.2 points per game. Small made a nice move to the basket, utilized a well-timed fake, drew a defender, then a foul with just one second remaining. Small held the fate of his team in his hand. A win would bring national respect, not to mention serving notice to the rest of the Big 12 at the same time.
The former Cowboy turned Mountaineer knocked down the free throws and knocked out the Jayhawks at the same time.
DeVries has his team playing hard, and most importantly, believing in each other. From the tip to the final whistle, this group gets after it and they don’t get caught up with scoreboard watching. Either. They seem to have it together, and if they can keep it together , this could be a special season.
That will do it for now! Until next week . . . take care and God Bless!!!