Kansas Basketball: 2020-21 takeaways from home win over West Virginia

Kansas did a good job of defending West Virginia’s high-low action

If there is one thing that West Virginia loves to do offensively, it is play high-low basketball and they do it pretty well. On Tuesday, the Mountaineers tried to play this style of basketball frequently, but the Jayhawks made it tough for them to obtain success.

Many of West Virginia’s offensive possessions included Derek Culver or Gabe Osabouhien catching the ball at the high post, and then attempting to feed Oscar Tshiebwe down low (and if Culver and Osabouhien were in the game at the same time, Osabouhien would try to get ball down to Culver).

However, David McCormack, Ochai Agbaji, and other Jayhawk players that were matched up against West Virginia’s big men did a good job of fronting them completely and forcing the Mountaineers to execute plan B.

That plan consisted of Osabouhien (normally) taking one dribble, jump stopping, and then handing the ball off to Miles McBride who would either pull up for a 15-foot jumper or get all the way to the rim if he saw an open lane.

It is certainly a plan that the Mountaineers can turn to if they need to, but there is no doubt that they were hoping that Culver and Tshiebwe would use their bodies and footwork to keep Kansas defenders behind them so that they could receive the ball deep in the paint and power up.

You could definitely tell that Culver (who finished with 8 points on 4-9 shooting) was frustrated that he was unable to impose his will down low, and have the big game that he was probably expecting to have (or at least hoping to have). If Sean McNeil had been defended in the first half the same way he was in the second, the Mountaineers may have gone into the half with a sizable deficit, due to their unsuccessful high-low execution.

And let’s make one thing clear, Culver and Tshiebwe are strong individuals who know how to fight for position without shoving defenders out of the way and gain the advantage in the paint/on the left or right block. That is why you have to give the guys that I mentioned a lot of credit for continuing to work until they had successfully caused Osabouhien to execute a dribble-handoff, and give up on trying to get Culver or Tshiebwe a paint touch.

Culver and Tshiebwe combined for just 11 points against Kansas on Tuesday, and that was mainly due to Kansas’ commitment to taking them out of the game and forcing others to beat them, which is a tactic that worked out for the Jayhawks in the long run.