Box Score West Virginia battled back from an 18-point second half deficit before running out of gas in the final three minutes to fall to UMass 87-79 in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic at MassMutual Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
 
The Mountaineers used some torrid 3-point shooting to tie the game on Seth Wilson's 3 with 9:04 left and was trailing 70-69 with 3:14 to go on Pat Suemnick's follow-up basket.

But then they went ice cold.
 
WVU missed its next six shots during a two-minute stretch, which allowed the Minutemen to build their lead back to seven. It got to nine on two Rahsool Diggins free throws and then to 10 on two more from Diggins at the line with just 48 seconds remaining.
 
UMass took care of business at the free throw line by making 25 of 32, including 14 of 15 during one stretch late in the game when West Virginia was fouling to try and get the ball back.
 
"We can't wait to fight," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said afterward. "We've got to fight from the jump. I know (UMass coach) Frank (Martin). We worked together and I knew his game plan. He was going to be as physical as possible, make everything hard on us and they did. It took way too long for us to bow up."
 
The Mountaineers (4-6) were bolstered by the services of guard Kerr Kriisa, coming off a nine-game suspension to begin the season, and guard Noah Farrakhan, who became eligible because of a U.S. District Court ruling earlier this week that suspended the NCAA's transfer waiver rule, but WVU's key import was unable to go.
 
That's guard RaeQuan Battle, who did not dress for the game because he has been battling flu-like symptoms.
 
"It was just unfortunate that Rae was sick and battling that illness. If we have any luck, it's all bad luck, but we're going to keep on fighting," Eilert said.
 
Kriisa gave WVU a big lift with a game-high 20 points while Farrakhan contributed 15 in 18 minutes of action coming off the bench, but that wasn't enough to slow down UMass' inside tandem of Josh Cohen and Matt Cross, who combined to score 32 points and grab 20 rebounds.
 
The Minutemen completely dominated the glass, particularly once West Virginia's Jesse Edwards went to the bench for a good portion of the second half because a hand injury. He did return briefly but scored a season-low two points on 1-of-7 shooting while grabbing just three rebounds.
 
"I told the officials, 'Somebody is going to get hurt.' I know how people play Jesse Edwards because when he's not in the game we can be crippled, so to speak, and they continued to hack and hack and he really hurt his wrist," Eilert said. "I'm praying everything is good with his wrist and he be ready to go for Wednesday."
 
UMass had a 47 to 32 edge in rebounding and outscored West Virginia 36 to 24 in the paint. In building its 15-point halftime lead, Massachusetts had a 19 to 0 advantage in fastbreak points.
 
Rebounding has been a major issue with this team since day one and Eilert is not sure how to fix it.
 
"It's proven to be a problem night in and night out and that's on me," Eilert said. "Me and my staff have to figure out a new approach to try and fix this."
 
Robert Davis Jr. came off the bench to score 18 and Diggins finished with 15 for the Minutemen, now 6-2 under Martin in his second year there.
 
Kriisa's line in his WVU regular season debut was 20 points on 6-of-16 shooting with seven assists, two rebounds and three turnovers in 36 minutes of action.
 
Farrahhan was 7-of-11 from the floor for his 15 points, while handing out four assists before fouling out.
 
Forward Quinn Slazinski added 20 and forward Josiah Harris came off the bench to tally 10 after attending graduation earlier today. Harris is just 19 years old and will now begin work on his master's degree.
 
West Virginia, which was averaging 21 free throw attempts per game, only got to the line 12 times tonight, making nine.
 
Eilert thought the free throw line could be helpful against a UMass team that was sending its opponents to the line an average of 26 times per game this season.
 
"They were 341^st in the country in free throws given up and they were plus 20," Eilert said. "They got to the line 32 times, and we got there 12. That should have been flip-flopped. I had to fight for our guys but that's just the way it ended up."
 
The Mountaineers return to Morgantown to face Radford next Wednesday night. WVU will have a home game on Saturday against Toledo and then a game against Ohio State in Cleveland before traveling to fourth-ranked Houston to tip off Big 12 play on Saturday, Jan. 6.