West Virginia beats Oklahoma in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament! This is a new season and the Mountaineers are 1-0! Forget the struggles, the frustrations and all of the terrible loses in the regular season. What a different, more cohesive team this is than what we saw earlier in the year. They hustle, they play together, they care. This is a Bob Huggins’ basketball team and it’s a team capable of making a big (dare I say “magical”) run in the Big 12 Tournament.
Despite Freshman sensation Derek Culver spending most of the game on the bench in foul trouble, West Virginia got the best game of the year from both Logan Routt (8 points, 4-4 FG) and Andrew Gordon (4 points, 4 rebounds, outstanding hustle). Jordan McCabe stepped up and knocked down several key threes in the 2nd half, finishing with 12 points (all in the 2nd half) on 4-10 from three. Lamont West finished with 13 points on 5-14 shooting. Jermaine Haley, quickly becoming WVU’s most consistent player, had 14 points and 12 rebounds. This was a team win by a real team.
Next up? Texas Tech. One game at a time. 2-0? Anything is possible with this team. Not convinced still? Check out this interesting Tweet by (still alive?) Bob Hertzel: