After Saturday's loss to Texas, West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said there were some players on his team that were getting minutes that they did not deserve. He didn't identify any of them, but it wasn't the first time that he intimated that changes might be coming to the Mountaineer rotation.

That didn't happen at the start of WVU's road contest at Texas Tech on Wednesday evening, as the regular starting five of Kedrian Johnson, Emmitt Matthews, Tre Mitchell, Erik Stevenson and Jimmy Bell took the court. But after a lethargic opening five minutes, in which the Mountaineers committed five turnovers, made just one of seven shots and trailed 10-2, Huggins made a move that should have come far earlier in the season.

The veteran coach made a hockey line change, putting in five new players (Kobe Johnson, Joe Toussaint, Seth Wilson, Mo Wague and Josiah Harris), and just a minute later inserted James Okonkwo for Wague after a foul on a defensive bust.

The effect on WVU's energy was immediate, and although it took a while, the Mountaineers eventually got the lead at 22-21 with 4:26 to go in the first half, and pushed it out to five (33-28) at the half.

Even that showing wasn't enough to get Huggins to alter the starting five in the second half, but when Johnson and Matthews teamed up to produce a shot clock violation at the 14:27 mark, the backups began flowing again. The results, as in the first half, took a while to materialize and be reflected on the scoreboard, but WVU slowly built its lead up to nine points at the under eight minute media timeout, then played efficiently down the stretch, with made free throws and solid defense producing a 76-61 win.

Interesting stats and numbers were all over the box score. WVU took 35 3-pointers (only 14 times have the Mountaineers attempted more in a contest), and made 10 of them against only nine two-pointers. That brought to mind the Elite Eight game against Kentucky in 2010, when the Mountaineers made no two-pointers in the first half, yet lead 28-26 at the break due to a barrage of eight threes. The Mountaineers also made 10 threes in that game, but balanced it with 10 two-pointers, nine of which came in the second half.

• Okonkwo finished with a career-high 10 rebounds, and had a highlight reel block. Erik Stevenson had a quiet double-double with 16 points and 10 boards, with nine of his points coming from the free throw line.

This dude � pic.twitter.com/uJJF4YGvKq— WVU Men's Basketball (@WVUhoops) January 26, 2023

• Matthews played a season-low 11 minutes, suffering four turnovers, while Mitchel had only three points and three rebounds in 20 minutes, while Kedrian Johnson was limited to four points in 15 minutes due to an ankle injury.

• Without question, it was a night for the bench. Seth Wilson banked in not one but two 3-pointers, but also hit three others on his way to 15 points, while Joe Toussaint had a game-high 22, fueled by a 12-14 performance from the line.

• WVU forged a massive 50-15 bench scoring advantage, and also dominated on the glass, snaring 44 as opposed to Tech's 27. That helped offset another bad turnover night, in which the Mountaineers suffered 19. That brings West Virginia's total to 54 over the last three games.

It's hard to imagine such a confluence of statistics and numbers coming together again this year, but the energy that the backups brought – and the motivation it seemed to provide to some of the starters – at least made WVU watchable on this evening. And while it might not mean wholesale changes in the starting lineup, there's no question that Huggins should go to his bench more quickly in future games.

A match-up of the two most disappointing teams in the Big 12 comes up on Wednesday, when West Virginia travels to West Texas to face Texas Tech. Of course, in a league as good as the Big 12, someone has to finish last, and that doesn't necessarily convey awful status on teams competing to stay out of that spot, but there's no doubt that both schools had hopes of finishing much higher in the conference standings.

West Virginia (11-8, 1-7) at Texas Tech (10-9, 0-7)Wed Jan 25 7:00 PM ETUnited Supermarkets ArenaLubbock, TXTV: ESPNUNET: WVU: 30 / TT: 73Series: WVU 16-8Last Game: TT 60-53Twitter: @BlueGoldNewsFacebook: BlueGoldNewsWeb: BlueGoldNews.com

Coming off a trip to the conference finals and a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16, head coach Mark Adams thought he had rebuilt and reloaded his team for another run at similar status, but the Red Raiders have lost seven straight games for the first time in a decade. Add in a very unimpressive non-conference schedule, and the most Tech can hope for this year is a rallying finish for an NIT bid.

Kevin Obanor (6-8, 235 lbs.) has been a steady force for the Red Raiders this season. Averaging 14.7 points and 6.3 boards per game this season, he will finish his career in Lubbock as a member of the 2,000-1,000 club.

WVU, according to assistant coach Josh Eilert, must move the ball, especially from side to side, to have hope of cracking Tech's usually tough defense. The Mountaineers, as in many areas this year, have been wildly inconsistent in that play phase. Most recently, WVU did a good job of sharing and swinging the ball against TCU, which helped produced one of its most efficient offensive halves of the season, but fell back into too much dribbling in place against Texas, which resulted in 20 turnovers and a painfully stagnant attack, most notably in the second half.

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Tech forward K.J. Allen was a featured player in the Netflix documentary series Last Chance U, which followed the fortunes of East Los Angeles College, a juco in Monterey, California. That series, while over-dramatizing some situations, provides an excellent look at the trials and tribulations of those fighting for a chance at a scholarship at a four-year school while trying to overcome many personal struggles and setbacks.

It also, unintentionally, reflects the issues many Division I teams, such as West Virginia, are experiencing in trying to put together teams that see two-thirds of their rosters roll over from year to year.

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WVU is still trying to hang its hat on its NET and Kenpom ratings, but metrics only take you so far, and the Mountaineers are steadily dropping to the fringe or entirely off the lists of those making estimations of NCAA Tournament selections. Oklahoma State and Oklahoma are also falling fast, reflecting the fact that at least some wins have to accompany strength of schedule.

Did West Virginia overschedule this year? Would a couple of more wins, and a schedule that didn't include, say, Xavier and Purdue, have been better overall?

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WVU has, for several years, been listed as the 20th winningest team in NCAA Division I history. Now, according to Wikipedia, the University of Washington has 1,839 wins, one ahead of WVU's 1,838. If accurate, that drops the Mountaineers to 21st.

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One of the reasons for Texas Tech's mediocre play has been shortcomings in ball security. The Red Raiders have 273 turnovers against 267 assists, and that ratio is much worse in league games, with 106 turnovers outweighing their 74 assists.

West Virginia's propensity to turn the ball over is also well-known, so the team that is able to lessen its normal average of possession-enders could have an edge in this contest. After believing the turnover issue had been at least partially corrected after games of seven (Baylor) and 5 (Oklahoma), WVU has again gone on an error-filled streak, with a combined 35 in its last two games. That's tied for the highest two-game stretch this year (Kansas State and Oklahoma State).

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After starting off the season with a blistering 3-point shooting percentage of 48.2% (27-56), Erik Stevenson is just 7-36 (19.4%) in WVU's most recent seven games. A few rim outs have contributed to the fact that he's clearly struggling mentally with his overall game. He's being asked to do some things, like distribute the ball and create off the dribble, that weren't necessarily part of his game at previous schools, and his intense and combative style of play has also led to some frustration that may be carrying over into his shooting.

It's unfair to expect him to shoot 48% from 3-point distance, and it should be noted that his current mark of 36.2% at WVU is the best of his career. He has to find a way to not let his passionate style of play affect his shooting. That's a big ask, however.

Two Big 12 men’s basketball teams desperate for a victory clash Wednesday night at the United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas (7 p.m. Eastern on ESPNU).

West Virginia (11-8/1-6) has struggled since the start of conference play, but Texas Tech (10-9/0-7) has been in an even greater slump.

It wasn’t that long ago that both clubs were in significantly better frames of mind, though.

The Red Raiders, who fell in overtime in the 2019 NCAA Championship game to Virginia (85-77) and were 27-10 last season with a run to the NCAA’s Sweet 16, started the 2022-23 campaign 10-2 and were ranked in the top 25 for several weeks. Since the start of Big 12 play, though, they’ve lost seven straight.

The Mountaineers’ 2022-23 path has been similar. They were 10-2 and ranked No. 24 nationally when conference action began on Dec. 31. They then proceeded to drop five Big 12 games in a row, four of them by seven points or less. West Virginia bounced back with a 74-65 win over TCU last Wednesday but then fell to Texas, 69-61, on Saturday.

Tech may still be looking for its first victory of the season in the Big 12, but the Mountaineers know they remain very dangerous.

“They have a lot of size, and they are going to throw a lot of people at you,� said WVU assistant coach Josh Eilert, who is in charge of West Virginia’s scouting report on the Red Raiders. “(Tech coach) Mark Adams has been notorious for his defenses, so isolations are going to be a struggle for anybody.

“I told our team that more than any time ever, we’re really going to have to move the ball,� added Eilert. “If we don’t move the ball from side-to-side and really pass it and share it, we’re going to struggle. If we get in the mode where we’re selfish and have guys who want to go one-on-one, they are going to run guys at you. They have an extreme help-side defense, but if we get them moving side-to-side, I think we’re going to get what we want.�

While West Virginia’s offense, which is averaging 77.0 points per game this season, has been good at times, it’s lacked consistency. It has averaged 82.6 points per game in its 11 victories and 69.4 points in its eight losses.

“I thought we did a really good job against TCU. We did a good job and controlled the game,� Eilert recalled of the nine-point win over the 14th-ranked Horned Frogs. “We really focused and nailed down our offense against TCU, but we slipped up against (No. 7) Texas. We didn’t have that mindset as much as we did against TCU, and we have to get back to cleaning up our offense and make sure we get really good looks.

“I tell our guys all the time that if we get good looks, we’re a helluva lot better offensive rebounding team, because we know where the shots are coming from. If the selfishness starts to creep in and we take shots out of the offense, it does us no good.�

When West Virginia first joined the Big 12 in 2012, it had great success in Lubbock, defeating the Red Raiders on their home court the first four times it traveled to West Texas. Things haven’t gone as well for the Mountaineers since, though, as they’ve lost five of their last six games at the United Supermarkets Arena with the only outlier being an 82-71 win at No. 7 Tech in 2021.

Wednesday’s contest will be the first between the two teams since 2014 where one (TTU alone five times) or the other (WVU alone seven times) or both (six times) are not ranked in the top 25. While the pair has split the 10 meetings in Lubbock, WVU holds a 16-8 overall advantage in the series.

“They really show up for their games, and their student section is really good,� Eilert said of Tech fans, whose average attendance of 13,367 this season is second in the Big 12 behind only Kansas (16,300). “This is probably going to be the second-best environment we’ve played in so far. They’re still packing the place, regardless of what they’ve done record-wise and their struggles. They’re really putting people in the seats, and their student section is as good as anybody in the country. This will be second only to Xavier, which was a really hard environment for us (in an 84-74 WVU loss). We have to work together and figure out how to come out of there with a win.�

Behind a pair of double-doubles from senior guard Jayla Hemingway and sophomore guard JJ Quinerly, the West Virginia University women’s basketball team (13-5, 4-3 Big 12) earned a 67-57 victory over Texas Tech inside the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown on Saturday afternoon.

Hemingway posted her third double-double of the season, while Quinerly earned earned the first double-double of her career. Hemingway recorded 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Quinerly added 16 points and 10 boards. Elsewhere, fifth-year senior guard Madisen Smith also scored in double figures with 17 points, as the trio attributed for 51 of WVU’s 67 points.

As a team, West Virginia struggled from the floor, shooting just 32.1% (18-of-56) overall and 27.6% (8-of-29) beyond the arc. The Lady Raiders shot 38.7% (24-of-62) from the field and just 13.6% (3-of-22) from 3-point range. Despite the final score line, TTU led WVU in points in the paint (42-14), second-chance points (18-14) and bench points (19-3).

After going 0-of-4 from the field to open the game, the Mountaineers finally got on the board with a Hemingway free throw at the 7:46 mark of the first quarter. Quinerly then hit a triple to tie it up, before converting the and-one opportunity at the 6:15 mark to give WVU a 7-4 lead. From there, both teams struggled to shoot, as the low-scoring quarter ended in favor of West Virginia, 12-10.

The Mountaineers opened the second quarter on a seven-point run, until TTU finally broke its scoreless streak at the 5:39 mark. Although West Virginia struggled from the floor, shooting just 25.8%, it forced seven Texas Tech turnovers to hold the Lady Raiders to just nine points in the period and take a 25-19 lead into the locker room.

Out of the break, the Mountaineers went cold, shooting 0-of-7 from the floor until Hemingway finally broke the drought with a driving layup at the 2:30 mark. Smith added a pair of baskets to close out the third, giving WVU a 36-32 advantage heading into the final frame.

In the fourth quarter, West Virginia refocused and found its shot again, going 5-of-7 from 3-point range after shooting a combined 3-of-22 in the first three quarters. Texas Tech also found its rhythm in the final frame, as the two teams combined for 56 points after only scoring 68 total points in the first three quarters combined. However, the WVU defense managed to hold off the Lady Raiders, as the Mountaineers earned the 67-57 victory.

With the win, West Virginia improved to 17-5 all time against Texas Tech, along with 9-2 in games played in Morgantown.

WVU now gets a little bit of a break as it doesn’t play another game until it heads to Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, Jan. 28, for a rematch with TCU. Tipoff from Schollmaier Arena is set for 2 p..m. ET, and the game will be broadcast on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.