Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Welcome to the Mysterious, Unpredictable World of College Basketball
January 20, 2019 01:23 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - So, who had Saturday's Kansas game as a W for the good guys?
Welcome to the mysterious, unpredictable and sometimes strange world of college basketball. Just when you think you have these 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds pegged they go off and do something completely unimaginable.
And who out there didn't already have this West Virginia University men's basketball team figured out, right?
Disappointing December losses to Florida and Rhode Island and alarmingly close home victories over Jacksonville State and Lehigh foreshadowed a cold, depressing winter of Big 12 basketball in Morgantown.
The chill began in earnest with a 62-59 loss to Texas Tech at the WVU Coliseum that prompted a postgame locker room dance party celebration from the Red Raider players and coaches that went viral.
And who could blame them? It was the first time Texas Tech had ever won in Morgantown.
Then came a seven-point defeat at Texas that was punctuated by Matt Coleman's late-game, 3-point prayer over Wesley Harris from the corner with just three seconds left on the shot clock, reminding us that it can also get cold in Austin, Texas.
Four days later in Manhattan, Kansas, West Virginia recorded an instructional video on how to blow a 21-point second half lead.
Up next was sub-.500 Oklahoma State at the Coliseum. That seemed like a great opportunity to get a Big 12 win, right?
Wrong.
While the Cowboys were shooting straight, the Mountaineers scattershot their way to an 85-77 loss against what is becoming their biggest Coliseum nemesis.
It was Oklahoma State's third straight win in Morgantown, as strange as that sounds.
Then, just like Rutgers, South Florida and DePaul in the old Big East days, whenever TCU shows up on the schedule it's an opportunity to get right in league play when things are going bad. At least that was the case until Jamie Dixon took over in 2016.
What we saw from West Virginia in its 31-point loss to the Horned Frogs last Tuesday night looked like the waving of the white flag at the conclusion of the Alamo.
When TCU's lead got to 35 and Dixon put walk-on-turned-spring-scholarship recipient Owen Aschieris into the game, that's when Mountaineer fans from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between began dreaming of a potential 2020 frontline consisting of Derek Culver, Sagaba Konate and super-signee Oscar Tshiebwe.
Many Mountaineer fans thought the fork was being inserted into the 2019 season in Fort Worth, Texas.
Then came yesterday - Kansas, the 14-in-a-row-Big-12-champion Jayhawks.
Sure, Kansas has always viewed its annual trips to Morgantown with as much dread as someone winning an all-expenses-paid trip to North Korea on Wheel of Fortune, but who in their right mind thought the No. 7-ranked team in the country would lose to 8-9 West Virginia – a team statistical guru Ken Pomeroy recently projected to win just four Big 12 games this year?
But a funny thing happened on Saturday afternoon: the Mountaineers didn't wave a white flag – they didn't even wear white for that matter as veteran equipment manager Bubba Schmidt chose instead to pull out the home grays.
West Virginia didn't turn the ball over numerous times as it did in losses to Texas Tech, Kansas State and TCU.
It didn't miss a lot of free throws as it did against the Red Raiders and Wildcats.
The Mountaineers didn't spend the majority of their offensive possessions dribbling the basketball with their backs to the basket, casually making their one-handed passes around the perimeter until someone was finally forced to jack up a 3 that usually clanked off the rim in the other direction, leading to a fast-break opportunity for the opposition.
And, against Kansas, they guarded the guy in front of them.
Kansas coach Bill Self thought the first half set basketball back "decades" and while Bob Huggins wasn't pleased with the way his guys were running offense, he was happy to see them fighting and competing – even the ones sick as a dog such as Beetle Bolden, who spent the majority of pregame warmups hugging a commode in the locker room.
There were plenty of opportunities for the Mountaineers to quit on Saturday.
They could have packed it in early in the second half when Kansas hit rapid-fire 3s to take a 39-34 lead, but they didn't.
They could have folded after the under-12 timeout when Kansas got the lead back to five once Dedric Lawson began taking over, but they didn't.
The Mountaineers could have folded their tents when Culver picked up his fourth foul with 6:23 remaining and Lawson's two free throws put Kansas ahead 58-53, but they didn't.
And West Virginia could have signed off when Marcus Garrett's driving layup gave Kansas its biggest lead of the game with 2:23 remaining, but it didn't.
Wesley Harris, the same guy who watched Matt Coleman bang in that late 3 in the Texas game, stepped up and hit a 3 from about the same spot on the floor where Coleman did, slicing Kansas' lead in half to three.
Then, West Virginia got a stop and Culver, who missed his first six shots going head-to-head against Lawson, calmly maneuvered his way to the glass to flip in his 10thand 11thpoints with 1:26 to go, making it a one-point game.
Two Kansas possessions ensued, both following Self timeouts, and the Mountaineers defended both beautifully. The second possession, a wild Lagerald Vick 3-point try from the corner, ended up in the hands of Jermaine Haley.
"Beetle Bolden made the best defensive play of the game that will go unnoticed, and I'm sure Bob will tell you the same thing," Self explained. "We had about 20 left on the clock, we threw the ball back to Dedric and had Devon go back to get it, and he never touched it. And the play was supposed to start with Devon touching it. Therefore, we ended up having a bad possession and not getting a chance to score."
The basketball eventually got back to Haley on the right wing where he drove right into the chest of Quentin Grimes to score the go-ahead basket with 8.5 seconds left, giving the Mountaineers a 65-64 lead.
The best look Kansas could get at the other end was another wild 3-point try from Vick that Lawson was unable to follow up and just like that, West Virginia's five-game Big 12 losing streak was over – against the best team in the league!
Go figure!
What this game means in the larger context of the rest of the season remains unclear, much like the minds of those 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds sometimes are.
West Virginia has another stern test coming tomorrow night against Baylor, which is coming off an impressive home victory over Texas Tech.
Down the road is a tough matchup at third-ranked Tennessee next weekend, followed by another difficult one against Iowa State at always-unwelcoming Hilton Coliseum to conclude January.
All three games will be extremely challenging.
But, with a win now under its belt against Kansas, it means West Virginia has a fighter's chance.
"Jim Harrick told me once 'I'd rather have the ball than not, I'd rather be up than down, and I'd damned sure rather win than lose,'" Huggins said. "We needed a win. We've kind of given a few away and hopefully we get on a roll now."
Why not?
After all, if these Mountaineers can beat Kansas they can beat anybody left on their schedule – including Tennessee, which lost to the Jayhawks on a neutral floor back on Nov. 23.
Welcome to the mysterious, unpredictable and sometimes strange world of college basketball. Just when you think you have these 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds pegged they go off and do something completely unimaginable.
And who out there didn't already have this West Virginia University men's basketball team figured out, right?
Disappointing December losses to Florida and Rhode Island and alarmingly close home victories over Jacksonville State and Lehigh foreshadowed a cold, depressing winter of Big 12 basketball in Morgantown.
The chill began in earnest with a 62-59 loss to Texas Tech at the WVU Coliseum that prompted a postgame locker room dance party celebration from the Red Raider players and coaches that went viral.
And who could blame them? It was the first time Texas Tech had ever won in Morgantown.
Then came a seven-point defeat at Texas that was punctuated by Matt Coleman's late-game, 3-point prayer over Wesley Harris from the corner with just three seconds left on the shot clock, reminding us that it can also get cold in Austin, Texas.
Four days later in Manhattan, Kansas, West Virginia recorded an instructional video on how to blow a 21-point second half lead.
Up next was sub-.500 Oklahoma State at the Coliseum. That seemed like a great opportunity to get a Big 12 win, right?
Wrong.
While the Cowboys were shooting straight, the Mountaineers scattershot their way to an 85-77 loss against what is becoming their biggest Coliseum nemesis.
It was Oklahoma State's third straight win in Morgantown, as strange as that sounds.
Then, just like Rutgers, South Florida and DePaul in the old Big East days, whenever TCU shows up on the schedule it's an opportunity to get right in league play when things are going bad. At least that was the case until Jamie Dixon took over in 2016.
What we saw from West Virginia in its 31-point loss to the Horned Frogs last Tuesday night looked like the waving of the white flag at the conclusion of the Alamo.
When TCU's lead got to 35 and Dixon put walk-on-turned-spring-scholarship recipient Owen Aschieris into the game, that's when Mountaineer fans from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between began dreaming of a potential 2020 frontline consisting of Derek Culver, Sagaba Konate and super-signee Oscar Tshiebwe.
Many Mountaineer fans thought the fork was being inserted into the 2019 season in Fort Worth, Texas.
Then came yesterday - Kansas, the 14-in-a-row-Big-12-champion Jayhawks.
Sure, Kansas has always viewed its annual trips to Morgantown with as much dread as someone winning an all-expenses-paid trip to North Korea on Wheel of Fortune, but who in their right mind thought the No. 7-ranked team in the country would lose to 8-9 West Virginia – a team statistical guru Ken Pomeroy recently projected to win just four Big 12 games this year?
But a funny thing happened on Saturday afternoon: the Mountaineers didn't wave a white flag – they didn't even wear white for that matter as veteran equipment manager Bubba Schmidt chose instead to pull out the home grays.
West Virginia didn't turn the ball over numerous times as it did in losses to Texas Tech, Kansas State and TCU.
It didn't miss a lot of free throws as it did against the Red Raiders and Wildcats.
The Mountaineers didn't spend the majority of their offensive possessions dribbling the basketball with their backs to the basket, casually making their one-handed passes around the perimeter until someone was finally forced to jack up a 3 that usually clanked off the rim in the other direction, leading to a fast-break opportunity for the opposition.
And, against Kansas, they guarded the guy in front of them.
Kansas coach Bill Self thought the first half set basketball back "decades" and while Bob Huggins wasn't pleased with the way his guys were running offense, he was happy to see them fighting and competing – even the ones sick as a dog such as Beetle Bolden, who spent the majority of pregame warmups hugging a commode in the locker room.
There were plenty of opportunities for the Mountaineers to quit on Saturday.
They could have packed it in early in the second half when Kansas hit rapid-fire 3s to take a 39-34 lead, but they didn't.
They could have folded after the under-12 timeout when Kansas got the lead back to five once Dedric Lawson began taking over, but they didn't.
The Mountaineers could have folded their tents when Culver picked up his fourth foul with 6:23 remaining and Lawson's two free throws put Kansas ahead 58-53, but they didn't.
And West Virginia could have signed off when Marcus Garrett's driving layup gave Kansas its biggest lead of the game with 2:23 remaining, but it didn't.
Wesley Harris, the same guy who watched Matt Coleman bang in that late 3 in the Texas game, stepped up and hit a 3 from about the same spot on the floor where Coleman did, slicing Kansas' lead in half to three.
Then, West Virginia got a stop and Culver, who missed his first six shots going head-to-head against Lawson, calmly maneuvered his way to the glass to flip in his 10thand 11thpoints with 1:26 to go, making it a one-point game.
Two Kansas possessions ensued, both following Self timeouts, and the Mountaineers defended both beautifully. The second possession, a wild Lagerald Vick 3-point try from the corner, ended up in the hands of Jermaine Haley.
"Beetle Bolden made the best defensive play of the game that will go unnoticed, and I'm sure Bob will tell you the same thing," Self explained. "We had about 20 left on the clock, we threw the ball back to Dedric and had Devon go back to get it, and he never touched it. And the play was supposed to start with Devon touching it. Therefore, we ended up having a bad possession and not getting a chance to score."
The basketball eventually got back to Haley on the right wing where he drove right into the chest of Quentin Grimes to score the go-ahead basket with 8.5 seconds left, giving the Mountaineers a 65-64 lead.
The best look Kansas could get at the other end was another wild 3-point try from Vick that Lawson was unable to follow up and just like that, West Virginia's five-game Big 12 losing streak was over – against the best team in the league!
Go figure!
What this game means in the larger context of the rest of the season remains unclear, much like the minds of those 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds sometimes are.
West Virginia has another stern test coming tomorrow night against Baylor, which is coming off an impressive home victory over Texas Tech.
Down the road is a tough matchup at third-ranked Tennessee next weekend, followed by another difficult one against Iowa State at always-unwelcoming Hilton Coliseum to conclude January.
All three games will be extremely challenging.
But, with a win now under its belt against Kansas, it means West Virginia has a fighter's chance.
"Jim Harrick told me once 'I'd rather have the ball than not, I'd rather be up than down, and I'd damned sure rather win than lose,'" Huggins said. "We needed a win. We've kind of given a few away and hopefully we get on a roll now."
Why not?
After all, if these Mountaineers can beat Kansas they can beat anybody left on their schedule – including Tennessee, which lost to the Jayhawks on a neutral floor back on Nov. 23.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's BasketballTV Highlights: WVU 74, UCF 67
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