Box Score Down to only two available bigs, West Virginia overcame a seven-point second-half deficit to defeat Iowa State, 72-69, Monday night at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
 
With 10:44 left, and West Virginia trailing 52-46, forward Tre Mitchell was called for a flagrant 2 foul while posting up Iowa State's Aljaz Kunc and was ejected from the game. Technical fouls were also called on Kunc and Caleb Grill when a scrum ensued.
 
After a lengthy review, what ultimately came out of it was two missed free throws by Kunc and two made free throws from Joe Toussaint, who was 8-for-8 from the line for the night. 
 
Earlier in the game, James Okonkwo joined Mohamed Wague on the injury list when he turned an ankle in the first half, meaning WVU had to finish the game with just two available inside players, Jimmy Bell Jr. and Patrick Suemnick.
 
Huggins instead chose to go with a four-guard lineup and forward Emmitt Matthews Jr., and West Virginia's offense came alive after Iowa State took a seven-point lead on Jaren Holmes' layup with 8:44 left.
 
A Kobe Johnson three-point play quickly reduced the deficit to four, 58-54, a Matthews 3 got it to three, 60-57, and a Kedrian Johnson jumper with 4:15 left made it a two-point game.
 
Kedrian had an opportunity to tie the game with 2:55 left but could only get one of his two free throw attempts to go down, reducing Iowa State's lead to 64-63. Matthews gave West Virginia its first lead in nearly 10 minutes with two free throws, and then added a dunk to make it 67-64 with 1:17 left.
 
From here, West Virginia's free throw shooting decided the game, Toussaint hitting a pair with 20 seconds left to put WVU up four, making two more with eight seconds remaining and Stevenson getting his second one to go down with 1.9 seconds left to make it 72-69.

There were players on the floor in the second half for West Virginia that have not seen a lot of court time in the last 10 games.
 
"We went small and offensively that really helped us," Huggins said. "I thought, defensively, we had some guys that really did a good job for us that really haven't played as much as they probably need to. Kobe Johnson was terrific defensively. He got up on Kalscheur and when we went real small, he guarded their post guy. He's got the strength to do it."
 
As was the case in the first game in Morgantown, a WVU victory, rough, physical play, and lots of fouling required several lengthy replay reviews that resulted in a two-and-a half-hour-long contest.
 
The two teams combined for 45 fouls resulting in West Virginia's 19-to-13 advantage in free throws made.
 
WVU (17-13, 6-11) also hit nine 3s, four coming from Stevenson, who finished with a team-best 23 points, and three from Toussaint, who tallied 19.
 
Matthews contributed 13 points, seven of those coming in the game's final 6:44.
 
"Joe Toussaint was really, really good," Huggins said. "Emmitt was out of gas, yet he made some great blocked shots at the other end for us, but I thought Joe turned the game around for us by getting us going again."
 
Iowa State's Gabe Kalscheur led all scorers with 26 points on 8-of-15 shooting. Holmes added 16 for the Cyclones, who have now dropped four straight and six of their last seven.
 
West Virginia's biggest lead was 11, 33-22, with 2:21 left in the first half.
 
Tonight's victory minimizes the sting of the Texas Tech loss at home on Feb. 18, and moves the Mountaineers into sole possession of eighth place in the conference standings a game behind seventh-place Oklahoma State. More importantly, it gives West Virginia's NCAA Tournament hopes a major boost.
 
Iowa State (17-12, 8-9) had an NCAA NET ranking of 23, which means this becomes WVU's fifth Quad 1 victory with 11^th-ranked Kansas State looming on Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum.
 
WVU came into tonight's game with a NET ranking of 26 and was listed as one of ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi's last four teams in the tournament.
 
"We had K-State beat at K-State and we just gave the game away, as we were prone to do earlier in the year," Huggins said. "It's been a heck of a transformation for these guys, quite frankly because we gave games away early on. To come in here and make a comeback the way they made a comeback today, says a lot about them. 
 
"I think we're growing and we're getting better. Defensively is where we've made massive improvement."
 
Saturday's Kansas State has already been announced a sell out and if WVU can draw 14,047 or more, it will average 12,000 for the season for only the fourth time in school history.