Box Score KANSAS CITY – West Virginia's surprising run in the Big 12 Tournament ended Friday night in the semifinals when third-seeded Kansas ousted the 10^th-seeded Mountaineers, 88-74, here at the Sprint Center in Kansas City.
 
Dedric Lawson scored 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting and grabbed eight rebounds to get the Jayhawks back into tomorrow night's championship game to face Iowa State, which clipped the tournament's top-seed Kansas State, 63-59, earlier tonight.
 
West Virginia (14-20) was leading 32-25 until Kansas freshman guard Quentin Grimes caught fire from 3-point distance. The Woodlands, Texas, resident went 5-for-5 from behind the arc to key a 23-8 Jayhawk run over the remaining 5:34 to give them a 48-40 halftime lead.
 
"Grimes got hot at the end of the half," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "We had our hands down and he just jumped up and shot them in. He was the biggest reason and maybe the only reason for their run. He was very good."
 
"He shot the ball ridiculously well in the first half," Kansas coach Bill Self added. "If it weren't for him over a four or five-minute stretch, West Virginia controlled the first half and we ended up going up eight just primarily because of Quentin."
 
Another 14-2 Kansas spurt early in the second half extended the margin to 18 before it swelled to 23 on Charlie Moore's layup with 8:14 to go. A 10-point WVU flurry made it a 13-point game with 6:05 left, but Kansas answered with six straight points to push the lead back to 19.
 
In addition to Lawson's 24, Grimes scored 18 before leaving the game with a leg cramps, according to Self. 
 
Devon Dotson added 13 and Marcus Garrett contributed 11 as Kansas shot a sizzling 52.4 percent from the floor, including 40 percent on 8-of-20 from 3-point range.
 
Kansas, now 25-8, has defeated West Virginia all three times the two teams have met in the Big 12 Tournament, the prior two times coming in the championship game. The Jayhawks are now 12-5 against WVU.
 
The Mountaineers got 16 points from junior forward Lamont West and a 14-point, 11-rebound, double-double from freshman forward Derek Culver, his ninth double-double of the season.
 
Freshman guard Brandon Knapper came off the bench to score 10.
 
Emmitt Matthews Jr., who scored a career-high 28 points in last night's win over seventh-ranked Texas Tech, was held to just 5 tonight on 2-of-10 shooting. Guards Jordan McCabe and Jermaine Haley also saw their seven game double-digit scoring streaks end tonight.
 
McCabe finished with 7 on 3-of-7 shooting while Haley had 4 on 2-of-5 shooting.
 
The Mountaineers, who dominated the glass in their first two tournament wins over Oklahoma and Texas Tech, were out-rebounded tonight by the much fresher Jayhawks 43-33.
 
The loss drops West Virginia's Big 12 Tournament record to 8-7 since joining the conference in 2013.
 
WVU was the first No. 10 seed to reach the Big 12 Tournament semifinals since the conference was reduced to 10 teams.
 
West Virginia is expected to accept an invitation to play in the College Basketball Invitational Tournament (CBI) with first-round games beginning March 19-20.
 
The quarterfinals for the 16-team tournament will be played on March 25 and the semifinals on March 28, with a best-of-three finals taking place April 1, 3 and 5 if necessary. 
 
"This team will be here next year and like coach said, we just got to stay together and stay positive," Knapper said. 
 
"We have to go back to the drawing board and figure things out," added Culver. "It's always going to be fun to go out and play with my brothers again."
 
The tournament field will be announced once the NCAA Tournament and NIT fields have been established.
 
The CBI is run by the Gazelle Group.