West Virginia welcomes Arizona in pursuit of its eighth straight win

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Arizona finished the non-conference portion of its schedule with a disappointing 6-5 record, which included an 83-76 overtime loss to West Virginia in the third-place Battle 4 Atlantis.

The rare meeting between conference foes in a non-league game took place Nov. 28 in the Bahamas, and a key piece in the outcome was Mountaineer forward Tucker DeVries, who poured in eight three-pointers and scored 26 points. DeVries has played just once since, in the next game against Georgetown, and has been out for a month with an upper-body injury.

While the Wildcats will almost certainly oppose a different Mountaineer team than in the first meeting less than six weeks ago, Arizona has also changed since then, and for the better. The two teams clash on Tuesday at 7:00 PM inside the WVU Coliseum, where the game will be televised on ESPN+.

It marks Arizona’s first game in Morgantown in 75 years.

“The biggest thing is we went from 80 degrees to 20 degrees,” first-year WVU head coach Darian DeVries said. “It’s a big adjustment. (Assistant coach Kory Barnett) has the scout and he says they’re playing really well right now and they changed a little bit of what they did in the Bahamas. He said they play at a pretty high level.

“We are also a little different with our staff. We have to take that game, learn what we can from it, but also apply it to how it works to how they play right now and how we play.”

Since the West Virginia setback, the Wildcats (8-5, 2-0) have won five of six, including four in a row. Arizona followed up a 90-81 win over TCU in its Big 12 opener with Saturday’s impressive 72-67 win at 16th-ranked Cincinnati.

The two league wins came in different ways, with explosive 6-foot-4 guard Caleb Love scoring 33 points with seven rebounds and seven assists against the Horned Frogs.

In the triumph over the Bearcats, Love, the team’s leading scorer at 16.3 points, struggled with 12 points on 3-for-15 shooting. Guard Jaden Bradley and 6-8 freshman forward Carter Bryant more than picked up the slack with 15 and 14 points, respectively. For Bryant, who logged 11 scoreless minutes in November’s meeting with the Mountaineers, his career high to this point came on 5-for-5 shooting with a trio of three-pointers.

Arizona did it on defense, too, holding UC to 9-of-28 shooting in the first half and 39.1 percent for the game. That’s been a theme lately for the Wildcats, who have held six of their last seven opponents to fewer than 70 points in regulation, starting with the loss to WVU, which went into overtime tied at 68.

However, in the matchup with the Mountaineers, Arizona will face one of the Big 12’s best defensive teams this season.

West Virginia (11-2, 2-0) has yet to trail in conference play and followed up its one-point win at Kansas with a dominant first half that led to a 69-50 home victory over Oklahoma State last Saturday. The Mountaineers worked their way into The Associated Press Top 25 on Monday at No. 21.

The win at KU came without DeVries and Amani Hansberry, who returned to the lineup in a reserve role against the Cowboys.

One of the mainstays of the Mountaineer’s lineup to this point has been the Big 12’s leading scorer in guard Javon Small, who has been one of college basketball’s most productive players this season.

Small is averaging 19.5 points and has team highs of 63 assists and 26 steals. His 70 rebounds and 5.4 board average are second on the squad, and both have been bolstered by 11 rebounds in consecutive contests.

“I don’t care who gets them as long as we get them,” DeVries said. “That’s the only thing I’m concerned about. Javon has done a good job the last couple of games. That’s a big part of our team rebounding, which we’ve been talking about for months. We’ve got to be a good defensive rebounder -team and he’s a big part of it. Back to back 11-rebound games, we told him it’s not just the points he scores that make him so valuable. He makes a lot of game-winning plays and some of the they are defensive rebounds.”

Allowing an average of 62.5 points, WVU ranks third in the Big 12 in scoring defense, while opponents are making just 37.1 percent of their field-goal attempts and 27.4 percent of their three-pointers against the Mountaineers.

“Defense is all about communication,” Small said. “We all understand our places as far as we need to be, but if there’s no communication, something can slip up or break, then we don’t know what to do. You always have to talk.”

All three characters will be put to the test in a big way against a talented Wildcat team coached by Tommy Lloyd.

While Arizona looks to reach six wins in its last seven games, the Mountaineers are looking for an eighth straight win. They have held eight straight opponents to fewer than 70 points through regulation.

“We want to make sure we keep people out of the paint, which requires guys to be in holes, but we also want to be tough and physical and not allow catches out on the wing, especially,” DeVries said. “It takes time to grow in as a defense because do you want me in the hole or do you want me to deny this? They’ve really grown as a defense to be able to be aggressive and disruptive but not get so spread out, that all of a sudden there are lanes, and we are exposed a little because of our physicality and pressure.”