West Virginia has a daunting schedule ahead featuring two ranked teams, but first the No. 21 Mountaineers face a challenging road test from Colorado on Sunday at Boulder, Colo.
West Virginia (11-3, 2-1 Big 12) is coming off a 75-56 home loss to Arizona that might serve as a lesson for their date with the unranked Buffaloes. The Mountaineers defeated then-No. 7 Kansas on the road and easily got by Oklahoma State at home before they were crushed by Arizona.
Now they face Colorado, which has dropped its first three conference games and has been strong at home. The Buffaloes (9-5, 0-3) won their first eight games on their court before falling to No. 3 Iowa State on Dec. 30.
West Virginia is dealing with injuries to key players. Tucker DeVries, Jayden Stone and KJ Tenner missed the loss to Arizona and Amani Hansberry was limited in the game. Their status for Sunday’s game has not been announced and coach Darian DeVries is planning for different scenarios.
“It does take some of the (practice) reps away when you have to get multiple guys ready at multiple positions, but it’s something you have to do to get everybody ready,” Darian DeVries said. “It’s something we’ve been doing, and we will continue to do. We’ll adjust with the lineup we have available on game day.”
Javon Small (19.4 points a game) leads the Mountaineers in scoring followed by Tucker DeVries (14.9) and Hansberry (10.1). Stone has yet to play this season.
The Buffaloes are coming off a tough 75-74 loss at UCF on Wednesday and are searching for answers three games into their return to the Big 12.
At Arizona State last week, Colorado couldn’t recover from a slow start and mounting turnovers, leading to a last-second miss in the loss to the Knights.
“I think each individual player on the team has to become more prideful of that part of the stat sheet,” Buffaloes coach Tad Boyle said of 22 turnovers on Wednesday night. “Whether it’s completing passes, footwork and traveling, not leaving your feet to pass the ball — which you can’t do in this league, especially if you’re a guard. ”
Leading scorer Julian Hammond III, who is scoring a team-best 13.6 points a game, had a career-high 26 against UCF. Colorado doesn’t have much turnaround time now in a stacked Big 12.
“We’ve got to come into that next game with a mentality that we’re 0-3 and we have to win,” Hammond said. “You don’t want to say any game is a must-win, but when you start that bad in the league you’ve got to start climbing up. We need to win these next few games, especially at home, no matter who the opponent is.”
The Buffaloes average 74.9 points a game despite having just three players scoring in double figures. After Hammond, Andrej Jakimovski is averaging 11.4 points a game and Elijah Malone is at 10.9.
–Field Level Media
