MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Just half of a second in some half-filled arena some 1,235 miles away from Morgantown, that’s where West Virginia’s final resting place in the 2019-20 Big 12 men’s basketball standings were determined Saturday.
Hours after on-rushing WVU students had left the Coliseum court in celebration following the Mountaineers’ 76-64 upset victory of No. 4 Baylor, Oklahoma guard Austin Reaves threw one final dagger at the Mountaineers.
Already entering the day needing a long and difficult mathematical equation to work itself out to earn the No. 3 seed in this week’s Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, WVU (21-10, 9-9 Big 12) nearly got it.
First, the Mountaineers had to knock off the Bears.
They accomplished that with the finest final 10 minutes of play in Morgantown since maybe the days of Da’Sean Butler.
Derek Culver blocked shots.
Emmitt Matthews Jr. dunked. Oscar Tshiebwe rebounded and dunked.
Miles McBride capped it all off with one thunderous slam of his own.
“I wanted to play the way we’ve played here for most of my time here,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said afterward. “Where we are physical, where we guard and where we rebound. I think we did all of those things well today.”
Then the rest of the equation began to work itself out. Kansas held off Texas Tech.
Oklahoma State went on the road and wiped the floor with Texas, a team that had won five-straight games before Saturday’s regular-season finale.
And for 39 minutes, TCU was handling Oklahoma. The Horned Frogs led by as many as 19 points with 14:32 remaining in the game. With two minutes to go, TCU still led by seven.
A TCU win would have sent the Mountaineers to Kansas City as the No. 3 seed, with a quarterfinal date against the Horned Frogs, a team WVU had beaten by 32 points in Morgantown back in January.
An Oklahoma win would mean the Sooners would get the No. 3 seed and would drop the Mountaineers — through another long and complicated tiebreaker system — to the No. 6 seed.
Brady Manek tied the game with 55 seconds remaining with a 3-pointer. Reaves won it coming off a set play and his jumper rang true with just 0.5 seconds left.
In truth, the entire day somehow seemed to sum up the Big 12 this season:
Kansas won and chaos reigned supreme throughout the rest of the league.
Even the Mountaineers’ win was a perfect example of their season.
They started off not able to buy a basket and committed turnovers you wouldn’t expect to see in a church-league game.
The finished by looking like one of the most physical and top defensive teams in the country.
“When we play defense like we did today,” WVU guard Chase Harler said. “It’s going to be tough for anyone to beat us.”
The journey now ventures into the postseason, where the next loss will mean an end to the Big 12 season. The one after that will mean and end to the entire season.
Oklahoma awaits. The Sooners swept WVU during the regular season and did it in convincing fashion.
Kristian Doolittle scored 27 in Norman during a 10-point win.
He added 19 more and three of his teammates also scored in double figures during an 11-point victory in Morgantown.
Oklahoma shot 42% from 3-point range and 47% percent from the field combined in both meetings.
That will certainly be a hot topic of discussion among WVU coaches this week, as they devise their game plan.
What won’t be discussed is the what-might-have been that happened in a blink of an eye in Forth Worth, Texas on Saturday.
“I think it’s more of who you play than what your seed number is,” Huggins said. “There is going to be some people that, I think, all of us would rather play. We’re playing pretty good right now, so I don’t think people will want to play us as much as maybe; I’m sure a couple of weeks ago they would have loved to play us.
“It’s kind of like Texas. You would have wanted to play them earlier in the year, but Texas is playing great. It’s all about who is playing well at the time.”
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