KU heads into unfriendly Morgantown

Jevon Carter arrived at WVU Coliseum several hours before last year’s Kansas-West Virginia basketball game, so he didn’t know a snowstorm had snarled traffic on the streets of Morgantown, W.Va., before tipoff.

“We knew if that game wasn’t sold out, there had to be something going on outside,” said Carter, West Virginia’s point guard.

In all, 12,097 brave fans navigated their way into the arena by halftime — plenty of time left to enjoy a 74-63 Mountaineer victory.

“I remember looking out and seeing the fans standing in the aisles and on the stairs instead of sitting in the seats because of how intense the game was,” said Carter, who had one of the Mountaineers’ 12 steals on a 22-turnover night for KU.

As Kansas heads back to Morgantown, a key to Tuesday’s game figures to be whether KU can handle West Virginia’s fullcourt press. The Jayhawks committed 20 turnovers in a 81-71 victory over WVU in the Big 12 championship title game on March 12 at Sprint Center and had 15 in a 75-65 victory over WVU last season at Allen Fieldhouse. That adds up to 57 turnovers in three games a year ago to WVU’s 41.

“You’re going to turn it over against West Virginia, but they can’t be live-ball turnovers,” KU coach Bill Self said. “You’d rather throw it out of bounds so your defense can get set rather than having numbers coming back at you.”

The Mountaineers, who have forced 441 turnovers while committing 223 in 19 games, harassed Baylor into 29 turnovers in an 89-68 victory over the then-No. 1 Bears on Jan. 10 in Morgantown.

“You get hounded the whole 40 minutes when you play them,” said KU junior guard Devonté Graham. “No team we play has pressure like that. We go against eight people in practice before we play West Virginia to simulate how hectic it is in traps.”

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is hoping his team can return to its ball-hawking ways. Oklahoma committed 12 turnovers in an 89-87 overtime victory over West Virginia last Wednesday at WVU Coliseum. Kansas State had 16 turnovers in another 79-75 win over the Mountaineers on Saturday in Manhattan.

“I don’t think our ball pressure is very good. Our ball pressure is not what it was,” Huggins said Monday. “We are not closing traps the way we were.”

Huggins believes the Mountaineers will earn every turnover they get against a KU team with “great speed, great transition speed. They’ve got multiple guys who can push the ball,” Huggins said. “I haven’t seen anybody near as good in transition as they are. They are running with people then all of a sudden they are laying it in and those people are trying to catch them.”

This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 7:06 PM with the headline "KU heads into unfriendly Morgantown."