Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Timmy Allen's 17 second-half points helped No. 20 Texas overcome a 10-point second half deficit to knock off upset-minded West Virginia 82-81 at a sold-out WVU Coliseum Saturday afternoon.
 
The Mountaineers led 64-54 with 10:44 left on a pretty backdoor basket by Taz Sherman, but it took the Longhorns just two possessions to halve their deficit and this is when Allen took over.
 
He scored 11 straight points during a four-minute stretch to pull Texas to within two, and then Jase Febres knocked down a wide-open 3 from the wing to give it a 72-71 lead with 4:37 remaining.
 
The Longhorn lead swelled to four and remained there with a minute to go when a couple of turnovers opened the door for West Virginia.
 
An offensive foul call on Allen gave the Mountaineers the ball with 19 seconds to go, and following a 30-second timeout, Malik Curry drove to the basket to score a layup with 11 seconds left. He was fouled by Febres and made the free throw to pull West Virginia to within a point, 82-81.
 
Then, on the inbound play underneath West Virginia's basket, Andrew Jones was unable to control Allen's pass across the floor and the ball rolled out of bounds to give WVU an opportunity to win the game with 9.5 seconds left.
 
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins used his final timeout to draw up a play, which ended up going to Curry, whose open 16-footer in front of the basket bounced off the front of the rim with a second left. Allen grabbed the rebound and was fouled by Sherman.
 
He missed the first free throw and purposely missed the second to keep West Virginia from getting forward momentum to try a game-winning shot attempt. Isaiah Cottrell grabbed Allen's miss and his pass down the floor used up the remaining time.
 
"We can't continue to expect Malik to carry us and he carried us today," Huggins said. "If that last one goes in this streak stops, but we just can't hardly get a break."
 
It was a physical game this afternoon with a combined 50 personal fouls whistled on both teams, leading to 65 free throw attempts. Texas forward Brock Cunningham was ejected in the first half for his flagrant 2 foul on Curry, and later, a flagrant 1 foul was called on Courtney Ramey against forward Gabe Osabuohien.
 
Allen, the brother of former Mountaineer forward Teddy Allen, led the Longhorns with 26 points on 7 of 9 shooting. He also connected on 12 of 16 from the free throw line and grabbed a game-best 10 rebounds.
 
Guard Marcus Carr contributed 15 points and Febres ended the afternoon with 14 for Texas, now 21-8, 10-6.
 
The Longhorns shot a sizzling 65% in the first half and finished the game connecting on 26 of 41 for 63.4%. Texas made half of its 3s (8 of 16) including one stretch in the first half when it connected on 5 of 6.
 
Today's loss spoiled Curry's season-high 27 points for the Mountaineers. The senior guard singlehandedly kept West Virginia in the game in the first half when he tallied 13, and he finished the day 7 of 15 from the floor and 11 of 13 from the free throw line.
 
Osabuohien came off the bench to contribute 12, including hitting 8 of 9 from the foul line.
 
Sherman tallied 13 but needed 16 shots to do so, while Sean McNeil was only able to get off four shot attemmpts resulting in 9 points.
 
"We got out-rebounded by 11 and it's hard to win games when you don't rebound the ball," Huggins said of his team's 28 to 17 deficit on the glass. "We're in kind of a dilemma because we're small if we don't play two (bigs) and we're not as good offensively when we play two of those guys."
 
Fifty of the Mountaineers' points today came from their bench and they shot 50% overall for the game – the second time this season they made at least half of their field goal attempts and lost. It also happened at Baylor when WVU shot 54.2% and fell 81-77 to the Bears. West Virginia led by seven in the second half before losing that one.
 
Today's defeat was the second straight one-possession loss for the Mountaineers, which now drop below .500 for the first time this season at 14-15. WVU has lost six straight since its 79-63 victory over Iowa State back on Feb. 8, which stopped a seven-game losing streak.
 
"I thought our whole team competed today," Huggins said. "It wasn't for a lack of effort but in some cases it was for a lack of knowledge."
 
West Virginia has regular games remaining at Oklahoma on Tuesday night and then at the Coliseum on Saturday against TCU.
 
The nine-team Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship will take place March 9-12 at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.
 
"We've got at least three more games to go and our plan is to go out and win three more and see what happens," Huggins said.
 
An impressive 13,470 attended this afternoon's game.