MORGANTOWN — The 13th-ranked West Virginia men’s basketball team made the wrong kind of history at the worst possible time Friday night.
In front of a season-opening crowd of 12,657 inside the WVU Coliseum, the Mountaineers lost an 11-point lead in regulation and was helpless in defending Buffalo guard CJ Massinburg in a 99-94 overtime loss against Buffalo.
Massinburg, a senior from Dallas, drilled a 33-footer with 14 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game into overtime. He scored 43 points on nine 3-pointers and added 14 rebounds for good measure.
“Our whole deal for four days was don’t let him get started,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said of Massinburg. “Don’t leave him wide open and let him get open, because he’s going to make shots. We let him get started.”
It was the first time WVU allowed an opposing player to score 40 or more since former Kansas standout Andrew Wiggins went for 41 on March 8, 2014.
All of it assured the Mountaineers (0-1) would lose a season-opener at home for the first time since November of 1988, when Gale Catlett’s group fell to Robert Morris.
The Bulls (2-0) erased a 63-52 deficit with 9:51 left in regulation behind Massinburg, who set career highs in points and 3-pointers.
At one point, the Bulls were 3 of 21 from 3-point range, but they promptly went 8 of 16 the rest of the way to pull off the upset.
“We wanted to try and make him feel uncomfortable,” West Virginia forward Esa Ahmad said. “He was having one of those nights. Everything he was throwing up was going in. Hats off to him. He played well, buut we have to play better.”
Until Massinburg’s hot shooting, it looked like the spotlight was going to belong to West Virginia guard Beetle Bolden, who was thought to have a 50-50 chance of even playing in the game, because of severely stretched ligaments in his left shooting hand.
Bolden, playing with the hand heavily taped up, finished with 21 points, four rebounds and four assists in what looked like an effort that would lead to a WVU victory.
Instead, the junior fell to the floor in pain with 2:55 remaining in regulation with an apparent left leg injury with the Mountaineers holding on to a slim 81-79 lead.
“I thought [the trainers] said he cramped,” Huggins said of Bolden. “That’s highly possible. He tried [to come back.] He was running over on the treadmill while he was out. He cramped up. He got four or five stitches in his eye, too, but it wasn’t a foul.”
He was carried off the floor by teammates Jordan McCabe and Trey Doomes and did not return to action. West Virginia fell apart without him.
“It would have made a huge difference,” to have Bolden in the game, Huggins said. “He wouldn’t have thrown it in the stands.”
The Mountaineers fell to 9-3 in season-openers under Huggins and have lost the last two, beginning with last season’s setback against Texas A&M in Germany.
It was the first meeting between the two schools since the 2015 NCAA tournament, when the Mountaineers held on for a 68-62 first-round win.
Much like that game, the pesky Bulls wouldn’t go away and this time they continued to fight and then pull away.
After surviving an early onslaught of 3-pointers from West and the Mountaineers, Buffalo battled back behind some gritty play, solid rebounding and a lay-up from Jeremy Harris gave the Bulls an early 17-16 lead after trailing by as many as eight.
“We’ve never beat a team on the road that is a top 25 team,” Buffalo coach Nate Oats said. “Even though it is not the NCAA tournament, it’s probably a bigger win.”
When Buffalo continued to threaten to pull off the upset, Bolden brought a sense of calm to the Mountaineers.
It wasn’t always his scoring, although he hit two key 3-pointers in the final 5:25 of the first half helped the Mountaineers grab a 38-30 halftime lead.
It was Bolden’s overall play that meant the most; a key assist, drawing an offensive foul, a steal, getting guys in the right place at the right time — all of it was nearly going to be missed — because the junior was a game time decision.
It was just the day before the game that Huggins called the point guard “courageous” for his ability to practice through the pain that comes with the severely stretched ligaments in his left shooting hand.
Pretty tough, too. He never hesitated to dive on the floor to come up with a steal and a lay-up that gave the Mountaineers a 56-48 lead with 12:05 remaining.
He didn’t think twice to put his body in harm’s way by leaping over Buffalo’s Dontay Caruthers to snare an offensive rebound that led to him getting two makes from the free-throw line.
“He’s only practiced a week,” Huggins said. “He hurt that thing the first day. He’s out there diving on the floor and taking charges and doing all of that stuff, while our other guys are standing there watching him.”
WVU trainer Randy Meador went to Bolden’s aid after the guard fell to the floor. Bolden later returned to the bench, but was limping badly.
Without him, WVU lost its offensive flow just when Massinburg was finding his.
In the overtime, Massinburg’s drive to the basket gave the Bulls a 93-86 lead with 2:07 left, and WVU’s offense could only muster some meaningless baskets at the end to cut into Buffalo’s advantage.
Lamont West added 22 points for the Mountaineers, who will travel to next week’s Myrtle Beach Invitational to face Monmouth in the first round of that three-game tournament. West also added nine rebounds.
Ahmad and Sagaba Konate each added 15 points.
“We didn’t have all five guys playing as hard as they could the whole time they were on the floor,” West said. “That’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in. We knew before the game who their best shooter was, which was [Massinburg]. We didn’t guard him well. He just got hot and got that confidence. Once he got hot, there was nothing we could do. Well, there was something we could do, but we didn’t do it.”
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