No. 25 BYU is all but certain of an NCAA Tournament berth. West Virginia needs every win it can get down the stretch to join the Cougars and probably six other Big 12 Conference schools on the March dance floor.
The Mountaineers search for one of those wins Saturday night when they visit Provo, Utah, for a conference matchup with BYU.
West Virginia (17-11, 8-9) helped its cause on Tuesday night by drilling TCU 73-55 at home for only its second win in five games. Point guard Javon Small filled his usual starring role with 23 points, 10 assists and five rebounds for just the eighth 20-10-5 game of that type in Mountaineer history.
Small has been everything West Virginia hoped for and more after transferring from Oklahoma State. He’s averaged 18.4 points, 5.6 assists and 1.7 steals, taking up slack for the loss of injured star Tucker DeVries, who played just eight games before going down with a season-ending upper-body injury in December.
The difference Wednesday night was other players who haven’t been major scoring threats coming up big. Sencire Harris and Joseph Yesufu, who average a combined 12.4 ppg between them, teamed up for 27, including 14 from Yesufu in a reserve role.
That unexpected production helped the Mountaineers pick up a crucial win.
“They’re all critical at this time of year,” first-year coach Darian DeVries said afterwards. “It doesn’t mean your season is over if you lose it but it certainly would have put us in a tougher spot.”
West Virginia has succeeded despite missing the firepower Tucker DeVries was expected to supply. It’s 305th in Division I in points per game at 68.6 and hits just 42.8 percent of its field goals.
Scoring isn’t an issue for the Cougars (20-8, 11-6), who have won five in a row and scored at least 91 points in the last three games. They’re coming off a 91-81 triumph at Arizona State on Wednesday night that saw them can 17 3-pointers to stave off an upset bid.
According to StatsPerform, BYU became the first Division I team this century to score at least 90 points, shoot at least 50 percent from the field, make at least 12 3-pointers and commit fewer than 12 turnovers in three straight games.
“We have a really unselfish group,” first-year coach Kevin Young said. “Our guys play for each other, whether that is making the extra pass, whether that is sprinting the floor. We try to get to the corner so we can space teams out.
“That’s really been something we have gotten really, really better at as the season has gone on. We are starting to see the fruits of that labor.”
BYU doesn’t have one go-to player, although Richie Saunders (15.9 ppg) is trying to fill that bill lately. Egor Demin (10.6) is its other double-figure scorer but the Cougars offer great balance. Seven other players chip in between 6.0 and 9.7 ppg.
Demin scored 16 points on Feb. 11 when BYU scored a 73-69 win at West Virginia. The Cougars own a 3-1 record in the all-time series.
–Field Level Media
