Men's Hoop Blog: Tough One in Lawrence
March 04, 2015 12:48 PM | General
It is raining and soon-to-be snowing in Morgantown, which figures considering the way last night’s Kansas game turned out.
Twentieth-ranked West Virginia played beautifully for 38 minutes, leading the ninth-ranked Jayhawks by as many as 18 points late in the first half and maintaining a seemingly comfortable margin throughout most of the second half.
The Mountaineers were out-hustling, out-rebounding, out-shooting, out-defending and out-everything-ing the Jayhawks in their own gym where they never lose.
Kansas coach Bill Self’s halftime adjustments likely included a lot of yelling, because his guys were clearly being out-played by the much more aggressive Mountaineers.
Things were looking good for West Virginia when its 20 percent 3-point shooter Jonathan Holton banged in two 3s in a row, they were looking good when the Jayhawks kept missing theirs (Kansas was 0-for-15 from 3 for the game), they were looking good when freshman guard Daxter Miles Jr. made another 3 with 7:52 left, and they were still looking good when Tarik Phillip stepped back and calmly knocked down an open jumper with 3:41 remaining to maintain West Virginia’s three-possession advantage.
But then, in a snap of a finger, the game turned – as it so often does at places where teams rarely lose.
After Phillip’s basket, the Mountaineers got two more good looks at the rim to make it a 10-point game, both didn’t go down, and then they fouled 92-percent free throw shooter Brannen Greene while trying to grab a rebound. He made both - as 92 percent free throw shooters normally do - turning what could have been a double-digit West Virginia lead into a two-possession game.
Now, the oil was clearly visible on the manifold.
Then, following a West Virginia timeout to get organized, the Mountaineers couldn’t get the ball inbounds and a home-run pass to beat full-court pressure sailed out of bounds untouched, giving the Jayhawks the ball underneath their own basket with the clock stuck on 1:55. Ironically, the same full-court pass made by the same player won the TCU game a month and a half earlier.
Nine seconds after the turnover, Jamari Traylor took a pass from Frank Mason III and scored a driving layup to make it a four-point game. West Virginia’s next offensive possession came up empty and then Frank Mason III, who possesses the best stiff arm in college basketball, cleared himself a nice little path to the rim where he dropped in a short jumper to make it a two-point game with 47 seconds left.
Now it’s a free throw game, and West Virginia, without its two most experienced guards and playing at an exhausting pace for 39 ½ minutes, has to make them to win.
It can’t, which sometimes happens. Just ask LeBron James.
A freshman only got one of two to go down, Mason III went Billy Sims once again to the rim, and then Devonte’ Graham (a 70.2 percent free throw shooter) converted two at the line to tie it at 59 – two more of the 34 free throws Kansas made for the game.
Considering how much energy West Virginia exerted to play as well as it did, considering how banged up the Mountaineers are right now (especially mummified sophomore forward Devin Williams) and considering that West Virginia was about to have half its team disqualified because of fouls, the Mountaineers were going to have to win this one in regulation or not win it at all.
Bob Huggins, not wanting to call timeout to allow Self enough time to throw up another exotic defense to confuse his young and inexperienced backcourt, chose to play on and see if one of his guys could make a play and win it at the end.
That strategy enabled West Virginia to get two pretty good opportunities to win it - one a good look from 3 beyond the top of the key that hit the back of the rim, and a second near the basket that was swatted away just before time expired.
In hindsight, the guess here is that Huggins would have probably preferred to see his ball handler take it to the basket and either try and score or pitch the ball to an open player, but his best guy at doing that was sitting on the bench in street clothes unfortunately.
Kansas - as teams that win 190 out of its last 199 games at home do - got the breaks it needed in overtime, made its free throws when it had to and celebrated another regular season conference championship.
But all is not lost for the Mountaineers; far from it.
There were plenty of good reference points for the guys out on the floor Tuesday night and when those situations come up again during their careers they can look back and say, yeah, that happened to me in front of 16,000 at Allen Fieldhouse. I know how to handle that now.
As I watched last night’s game unfold, I couldn’t help but think back to a West Virginia football game played in State College in 1987 - at another place where the home team rarely loses.
No, there were no Gumans refereeing the game in Lawrence, Kansas last night, and, no, the refs didn’t win it for Kansas, but it did remind me of how difficult the circumstances can be at places where teams rarely ever lose - and never expect to lose.
It also reminded me that young teams often come of age in these types of environments … just like the West Virginia football team once did back in 1987 after that bitter loss up in State College.
And when that happens, the sun will be shining once again.
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