Matthews Finds Confidence in Dismantling of Texas

Emmitt Matthews appears to be coming out of his slump

The West Virginia Mountaineers (15-3, 4-2) humiliated the Texas Longhorns (12-6, 2-4) in Morgantown with a 97-59 conference win.

Emmitt Matthews Jr. hasn't played up to his potential over the course of the last month. During his slump, he was held to nine points on 2-17 shooting during his first five Big 12 games. But last night, he seemed to find his shooting stroke and some confidence in the blowout victory, as the sophomore forward finished with eight points, four rebounds and a steal.

"I've had more than a couple [tough games]. I'm just glad to have my confidence back. My teammates been on me in practice and when I been working out. Everybody wants to see me get back to what I was doing."

Matthews settled for a lot of jump shots in the Ohio State and Kansas games (3-16). He then seemingly disappeared over the previous few games. After finishing with zero points and just one shot attempt in the huge win over TCU, Matthews was only on the floor for 12 minutes in Saturday's loss to Kansas State.

"I tried to be a little more aggressive and get to the free throw line tonight."

Matthews was proud of his team for how they were able to bounce back following a loss.

"We're resilient. When we lose a game, we come back out and really play like we want to win. It's funny, last year when we won a game, we'd be so happy that we'd come out the next game and forget how to play."

When asked about what changed, Matthews replied, "Turnovers. We had a good team meeting where we said we don't want to turn the ball over anymore, and that if we take care of the ball we know what we can do."