MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — There should be a thank you letter — there’s won’t, but there should — waiting on West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons’ desk on Monday morning from the Big 12 conference.
With each passing road game the 13th-ranked West Virginia men’s basketball team plays, all the Mountaineers truly accomplish is getting other Big 12 teams into the NCAA tournament.
That’s basically what happened Saturday, as the Mountaineers fell to squarely-on-the-bubble Oklahoma, 69-59, at the Lloyd Noble Center.
The Mountaineers (18-5, 6-4 Big 12) dropped their third straight road game. The last two — against Texas Tech and the Sooners — basically solidified spots into the NCAA tournament for those two schools, minus a complete meltdown by them down the stretch.
The more teams a conference gets into the NCAA tournament means more games and more money earned by the Big 12 to be spread out among the 10 schools later this summer.
So, thank you West Virginia, for making the ultimate sacrifice in taking one, or two for the team. The Big 12 is appreciative, we’re sure.
As for the Mountaineers, that Big 12 title the players had hoped for is out the door. Even getting to second place is now all but a pipe dream.
“In all honesty,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins began his postgame radio show. “They’re not the same guys. They’re not the same guys who were out an hour before practice, almost every single one of them.”
And this can quickly turn into not the same team for the Mountaineers.
Earlier in the day, the NCAA released its list of in-season rankings and had WVU as the final No. 2 seed in the 68-team field.
That’s going to change after this loss that saw the Mountaineers take 76 shots and somehow miss 52 of them.
How amazing is that stat? WVU missed more shots than the Sooners attempted.
The 76 shots — minus the triple-overtime game against TCU last season — was the most shots WVU has ever attempted in a Big 12 game … ever.
“Twenty-two missed shots from within two feet of the basket,” Huggins said. “What other explanation is there? We took 76 shots. We had one of our guards take three shots. Two of them didn’t hit anything and one of them hit the backboard before it hit the rim. How do you explain that?”
Huggins tried, saying his players’ attitudes and enthusiasm has changed of late.
What was once a lively, youthful and a spirited bunch looked old, worn down and beaten against Oklahoma.
And while most of the credit has to go to Oklahoma and senior forward Kristian Doolittle, who had a career day with 27 points and 12 rebounds, there is no excuse that can be made for just how bad this team becomes away from the WVU Coliseum.
Brandon Knapper took a shot that barely caught the opposite side of the iron — not the rim — and hit the bottom of the backboard.
Taz Sherman took a shot along the baseline that hit the side of the backboard and Miles McBride saw his lay-up attempt end up in the seats after Doolittle blocked it.
That was three straight possessions in a span of 60 seconds. The other 39 minutes weren’t much better.
Derek Culver missed a wide open two-foot baby hook shot that fell off the other side of the rim. He ran back down the floor with his arms in the air, as if to ask, “What in the world is going on here?”
“We talk about youthful exuberance,” Huggins continued. “Did you see any exuberance in us? I didn’t.”
To put this game in perspective, no, West Virginia is not knocked out of the NCAA tournament with this loss. At worst right now, the Mountaineers are a No. 3 seed and trending down, depending on what the other schools in the top 15 do.
But, here’s the thing: No. 3 Kansas comes to Morgantown on Wednesday, followed by a road game against top-ranked Baylor on Saturday.
Think those teams are going to feel sorry for the Mountaineers? Doubtful.
Kansas and Baylor have to believe the Big 12 race just became a two-team jaunt to the finish and beating West Virginia would only further solidify their own NCAA tournament seeding.
A potential three-game losing streak in the middle of February could be disastrous and would also have West Virginia no better than .500 in conference play.
Teams at .500 in conference play — any conference — are not a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament, probably not a No. 4 or No. 5, either.
That’s how quickly it can all change in college basketball, much how Huggins described how fast his own players have changed in recent weeks.
“It’s up to them,” Huggins said. “That’s what I told them, ‘It’s up to them.’ I told them, ‘You’re going to get your (butt) beat. You’ve got a bad attitude, man.’ You know what? They did. It wasn’t close. It’s not hard to see. It’s impossible to fix. I can’t fix someone else’s attitude. I’ve got to deal with mine.”
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