KANSAS CITY – Oklahoma’s terrific guard Buddy Hield scored 39 points in yesterday’s victory against Iowa State. Well, it turns out he needed to save at least two of those for tonight’s game against West Virginia.

 

The Mountaineers held Hield to just six points on 1-of-8 shooting, and the refs took care of the only other field goal he made as West Virginia pulled off a dramatic 69-67 victory over the sixth-ranked Sooners to advance to Saturday’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship game against top-ranked Kansas.

 

It took West Virginia about five extra minutes to learn its fate, when, following a Jonathan Holton free throw with 1.9 seconds left that gave the Mountaineers a two-point lead, Oklahoma got the ball to Hield and he let one fly from about half court.

 

The ball banked in, Hield and his teammates ran up into the crowd and celebrated with Sooner fans, but when the game’s three officials John Higgins, Doug Sirmons and Don Daily went to the replay monitor, they determined that time had already expired before the ball had left Hield’s hand.

 

It was a dramatic ending to a game that had more twists and turns than a country road.

 

“It’s kind of a crazy game in a lot of ways,” said Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger.

 

Indeed, it was.

 

For 34 minutes, West Virginia (26-7) was in complete control of the game and did so by sending waves of defenders at Hield and forcing the senior guard and his teammates to turn the basketball over a season-high 21 times.

 

Isaiah Cousins had a nightmarish night with seven turnovers, Hield and Dinjiyl Walker finished with three turnovers each, while three other Sooner players had at least two miscues.

 

“I thought West Virginia had us on our heels with their press,” said Kruger. “I don’t think we handled it well at all. They dictated for the most part and they rebounded well. When you play West Virginia and you don’t handle their pressure well, don’t rebound very well, you’re going to dig yourself a hole, which we did.”

 

Oklahoma’s ball handling woes led to an 11-point WVU lead with 6:29 remaining and it appeared the Mountaineers were in great shape coming down the stretch with a much deeper bench.

 

But the Sooners (25-7) began digging themselves out of their hole and shoveling the dirt on West Virginia, the Mountaineers going more than four minutes without a field goal. Actually, the dry spell lasted more than five minutes because Cousins was called for goal tending on Jevon Carter’s made field goal with 6:29 remaining.

 

After the basket that was credited to Carter, Oklahoma began methodically chipping away at West Virginia’s lead.

 

Cousins got a three to go down with 6:10 left to make it 61-53.

 

Then, two free throws by Cousins with 5:41 remaining reduced the lead to six.

 

A Christian James basket  with 4:44 to go made it a four-point game, followed by two more free throws from James  that got OU’s deficit down to two, 61-59.

 

Another empty offensive possession by West Virginia opened the door for Oklahoma to take the lead, and it did on James’ second three with 2:55 remaining to make it 62-61, Sooners.

 

West Virginia’s Tarik Phillip finally ended the scoring drought with a conventional three-point play when he was fouled by Ryan Spangler as he drove into the lane and made a layup.

 

Cousins answered with a three to give OU back the lead with 2:12 left, and the Sooners got its lead to three points on a pair of James free throws with 1:47 to go.

 

Oklahoma could have had a five-point lead with 1:05 remaining, but Spangler missed two free throws, including an airball on his second attempt, and on the other end Jaysean Paige was fouled by Spangler going to the basket, the senior made both free throws, and Oklahoma's lead was down to one, 67-66.

 

Cousins missed at the other end, Phillip got the rebound and Paige was able to get a high-arching jumper to fall through with 11 seconds left to put West Virginia back in the lead, 68-67.

 

Following a 30-second timeout called by Kruger, the Sooners got a great look at the basket, but James wasn’t able to get his layup attempt to go down, Holton grabbed the rebound and went to the free throw line where he made one of two to set up the game’s final dramatic sequence.

 

“It’s kind of a blur,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “You don’t want to turn (Hield) loose, but you sure don’t want to foul him and I think that’s what our guys were thinking. They were trying to slow him down, but at the same time they are trying not to foul him because he’s a 90-percent free throw shooter. So I guess we take our chances, the heave from half court rather than putting him to the line for two.”

 

West Virginia guard Jevon Carter turned out to be the missing link in the two prior losses to OU this year – the first one by two in Norman on a last-second tap-in, and then WVU’s second-half collapse in Morgantown that saw the Sooners use a late run to win by 14.

 

Carter was 1-of-10 shooting in the second loss in Morgantown and scored just six points in the first meeting.

 

Tonight, he more than tripled his regular-season production against the Sooners with a game-high 26 points - 14 of those coming in the first half to help the Mountaineers take a 30-29 lead into the locker room at the break.

 

WVU also got a valuable nine points and 11 rebounds from junior forward Devin Williams, who managed to finally play a full game against the Sooners. In game one he sat on the bench for 25 minutes in foul trouble and in the second game he fouled out with less than a minute to go.

 

Williams played 28 minutes tonight, and because of that, West Virginia was able to outrebound the Sooners for the first time this season. And finally, OU’s substantial free throw advantage it enjoyed in the first two games was not nearly as pronounced this evening, the Sooners outscoring the Mountaineers by just three at the charity stripe instead of the 19-free-throw margin they enjoyed during the two regular season games this year.

 

In three games facing Huggins' defense this year, Hield made just 15-of-40 field goal attempts for 37.5 percent. His six points tonight were easily a season low for the 25.6-points-per-game scorer.

 

“We just tried to keep the ball out of his hands,” Huggins explained. “Everybody has been asking me how do you stop him? I don’t know how to stop him. The only thing I know is it’s hard to score if you don’t have the ball.”

 

Added all up, it comes out a 69-67 victory for West Virginia and a meeting against Kansas in tomorrow night’s championship game.

 

The Jayhawks held on to defeat Baylor, 70-66, in a game it controlled throughout before the Bears made it interesting at the end.

 

Kansas and West Virginia split during the regular season, the Mountaineers defeating the Jayhawks by 11 in Morgantown and Kansas winning by 10 a month later in Lawrence.

 

Tip off is scheduled for 6 p.m. ET/5 p.m. CT.