Texas Tech basketball: Scouting the West Virginia mountaineers

West Virginia is one of the best rebounding teams in the nation

Coming off a game in which the Red Raiders lost the overall rebounding battle to Baylor by 19 and gave up 17 offensive boards, it is not comforting to know that today’s opponent is the best rebounding team in the Big 12.

At 42 rebounds per game, West Virginia is the only team in the conference grabbing over 40 per contest.  By contrast, Tech is 5th in the Big 12 at 37.6 per game.   Additionally, the Mountaineers are pulling down 7.8 more boards than their opponents, the largest rebounding margin of any conference team.

Nationally, Huggins’ team is 16th when it comes to the percentage of available rebounds they collect at 55%.  The national leader in that category is Houston which is at 57.6%.  Tech is No. 75 at 52.8%.

As for the area of the game in which Baylor killed the Red Raiders on Tuesday, offensive rebounds, WVU is also elite.  Swallowing up 37.4% of their missed shots on the offensive glass, they are third-best in the nation.  In other words, we are going to learn today whether the Red Raiders’ inability to keep Baylor off the offensive glass was an anomaly or a true problem that could eventually be the fatal flaw of this year’s squad.