West Virginia’s improved offense foretells its potential Sweet 16 redemption
By Chris Stone
West Virginia’s offense will go a long way for the Mountaineers in the Sweet 16
The West Virginia Mountaineers last played in the Sweet 16 on March 26, 2015. Their opponent was an undefeated Kentucky squad that featured the overall No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, six other players who have since been drafted and another one who was signed to a free agent deal shortly after going unselected. That level of talent didn’t matter to then-freshman Daxter Miles Jr.
Miles predicted a shocking upset, “Salute them to getting to 36-0, but tomorrow they’re gonna be 36-1.” Just over 24 hours later, Miles would have to be coaxed out of a bathroom to talk to reporters following a 78-39 mauling by the Wildcats. He repeated some variant of the same phrase — “They played great.” — over and over again in response to questions about the shellacking. It was one of the most humbling moments in NCAA Tournament history.
Now, following a dominant 83-71 win over Notre Dame in the round of 32 this past weekend, Miles and the rest of the Mountaineers are headed back to the Sweet 16 two years after the Kentucky incident and one year removed from a first round upset against Stephen F. Austin.
This isn’t a story about the individual redemption of Daxter Miles Jr., though. It’s about the evolution of the Mountaineers as a whole since head coach Bob Huggins changed their system and the team’s potential to erase those bad memories come Thursday night.
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For the third straight season, West Virginia has one of the best defenses in the country. That streak coincides with a transition to a system affectionately known as “Press Virginia,” a fullcourt pressing scheme designed to harass opponents and create turnovers that was implemented by Huggins in response to the style of play in the Big 12 and his team’s inability to get stops after joining the league.
The switch worked immediately. After finishing their first two seasons in the Big 12 ranked in the 130s in Division I in adjusted defensive efficiency, the Mountaineers finished 29th in 2015 before ramping into a top 10 defense in each of the last two seasons. In all three years of the “Press Virginia” experience, the team has ranked first or second in turnover rate. It’s so good that it forced a Notre Dame squad that was the best team in the country at protecting the ball into 14 turnovers on Saturday.
There are downsides, too. The Mountaineers have consistently ranked near the bottom of Division I in defensive free throw rate because their aggressive style lends itself to sending opponents to the charity stripe, but overall the shakeup has been a positive one, taking West Virginia from an NIT team in 2014 to one that has made the Sweet 16 in two of the last three seasons.
While defense will continue to be West Virginia’s calling card — so much so that they sell “Press Virginia” t-shirts in the school’s official bookstore — it’s the improvements that the Mountaineers have made on offense that could hold the key to making their first Elite Eight since 2010.
Since rolling out the new defensive scheme in 2015, the team has raised its adjusted offensive efficiency (measured in points per 100 possessions) from 110.5 in season one to 117.1 in 2017. There have been important improvements in both transition and in the halfcourt.
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Creating turnovers generates a number of transition opportunities for the Mountaineers, but in the beginning, they struggled to convert those supposedly easy chances. Now, Miles and sophomore Esa Ahmad have developed into elite finishers on breakaways and 6-foot-8 freshman Lamont West has been outstanding in these situations since stepping on the court this fall. During the 2015 season, West Virginia averaged just 1.01 points per possession (43rd percentile) while shooting 48.2 percent from the floor on transition opportunities, per Synergy Sports. This season, those numbers have improved dramatically as the Mountaineers are scoring 1.21 points per possession (97th percentile) and shooting 58.0 percent in transition. Still, that only accounts for a small portion of West Virginia’s overall scoring as just 15.4 of the team’s offensive possessions (179th nationally) come in transition.
The Mountaineers have, more importantly, made significant strides with their halfcourt offense, going from 0.81 points per possession (21st percentile) in 2015 to 0.86 (38th percentile) in 2016 to 0.90 (64th percentile) this season. At the core of that improvement has been a rising efficiency on West Virginia’s jump shot attempts bred by time spent in the gym. “They put an enormous amount of time in,” Huggins told reporters after the Mountaineers win over Notre Dame. “They’re in the practice facility 12 months out of the year.”
West Virginia’s practice has paid off as their halfcourt jump shooting numbers on a per possession basis have improved nearly across the board. As always, though, long-range 2-pointers are still tough to make:
The team’s leading scorer, junior point guard Jevon Carter, exemplifies the Mountaineers’ evolution. Carter, a former three-star recruit who ranked 279th in the class of 2014, is the reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year who has turned himself into a potential future NBA player because of his shooting growth.
As a freshman and sophomore, Carter was a terrible outside shooter. He made just 31.0 percent of his 297 3-point attempts in those two seasons before adding some range to his game. This year, he’s raised that number to 38.6 percent without a corresponding increase in the volume of shots he’s taking or an improved free throw percentage, two peripheral numbers that might hint at a cause for the better 3-point shooting. There are two potential explanations: either Carter is going through a season-long hot streak or those 12 months a year in West Virginia’s practice facility getting in the reps are finally starting to pay off.
Behind an improved offense led by Carter, the Mountaineers have finally turned into a two-way threat, and because of it, they now rank among the best teams in the country alongside blue bloods like Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. West Virginia is sixth nationally in adjusted efficiency margin at KenPom, fourth in the Sagarin Ratings, fifth at Team Rankings and seventh in ESPN’s predictive Basketball Power Index.
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On Thursday night, Carter, Miles and several others who played in that infamous Kentucky game will take the floor with a chance at redemption. Their opponent will be the Gonzaga Bulldogs, a program searching for its first Final Four appearance in school history.
It’s a tough matchup for the Mountaineers. Gonzaga is the top-ranked team at KenPom. The Bulldogs protect the ball and shoot it well. This is also Mark Few’s best defensive team since he’s been at Gonzaga. They have size on the interior and at least one potential lottery pick on their roster. The Bulldogs will inevitably be favored to make their second Elite Eight in three years.
But if there’s one thing we learned about this team two years ago, it’s that West Virginia won’t be scared playing against one of the nation’s best teams. Now, the Mountainers have the offense to back up their confidence. Maybe this time Miles will be able to change his answer and tell reporters, “We played great,” instead.