COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The defensive play of the game belonged to Oklahoma forward Jalen Hill, either him or the rim itself.
In coming off the man he was supposed to guard — WVU’s Taz Sherman — Hill was in the right place at the right time when WVU forward Derek Culver corralled a lob pass from Deuce McBride in the final 3.5 seconds of West Virginia’s 91-90 double-overtime loss on Saturday against the Sooners.
The pass was a little too deep to begin with, and so Culver was basically under the rim when he made his attempt for a game-winning shot.
Either Hill blocked it or the ball just hit underneath the rim. Culver scooped it up and tried again, only to have his frantic put back come off too hard off the backboard.
“The flip side is we threw it in the paint with three seconds to go and couldn’t get it on the rim,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said.
Hill made a nice play. Moments earlier, Oklahoma forward Kur Kuath made another by coming up with a block of Culver with 7.1 seconds remaining and then the ball came back down to hit Culver while he was out of bounds.
That was followed up from another nice defensive play from WVU forward Gabe Osabuohien, who tied up De’Vion Harmon on the inbounds pass to even get the Mountaineers their final possession of the game.
But, let’s be honest for a moment, this game had little to do with defense.
And that was the problem for the Mountaineers.
You can make that assumption just from the final score. A week ago, Texas and Oklahoma State played a double-overtime game that had 39 fewer points scored.
We’ll dig a little deeper than just the final score, and when you do that, you’ll find when it mattered most, the Sooners pushed the right offensive buttons and WVU came up just short.
Go back to the end of regulation. Oklahoma trails, 72-70, with under 30 seconds remaining. The Sooners have to have a play or the game may have been over then.
Umoja Gibson, who killed the Mountaineers in the first meeting of the season last month with 29 points, is standing under the basket before he makes his way out to the perimeter.
When he gets there, teammate Brady Manek sets a screen for him — one that WVU guard Sean McNeil had no choice but to get caught up in — and Gibson takes in the pass around the foul line, scoots right past Osabuohien and scores on a lay-up to send the game to overtime.
It was so perfectly executed that it was the kind of play that should be replayed over and over again in coaching clinics all around the country.
WVU’s response was two tough shots from Deuce McBride and neither would fall. Before Gibson’s bucket, Osabuohien missed two free throws that also could have put the game away.
That was anything but textbook.
In the second overtime, on two occasions the Sooners simply found a guy to make a play and told everyone else to get out of the way.
Harmon drove right past Emmitt Matthews Jr. with 1:40 remaining to cut West Virginia’s lead to 88-87.
The go-ahead bucket came from Austin Reaves, who played in both overtimes with four fouls and finished with 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
He was man-on-man with McBride with 26.9 seconds left. Reaves drove to his left, went behind his back with the ball and put up a shot just inside the foul line that just barely grazed the rim and fell through.
“It was outstanding. He had big-time plays at critical times in the ball game,” Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said. “Austin was terrific. He was making plays off of the dribble and getting to the free-throw line, driving and kicking for others. He got a couple of big rebounds. Huge game for Austin.”
Now, is all of that just great offense by the Sooners or are the Mountaineers getting hurt again by not being able to keep guys out of the lane?
“Reaves is super talented, we knew that coming into the game,” McNeil said. “The ball screened for Brady and Reaves, two elite shooters and Reaves is a guy who can get downhill. It’s tough to guard and they had some success with it. We struggled to guard it.”
The bottom line: If you’re not going to play defense, you better come up with good offense.
Culver’s frantic play at the end was just one example. WVU going a horrid 11 of 21 from the foul line was another.
Being loose with the ball, throwing passes too deep and not making the clutch shots, they all added up to a fourth-consecutive loss to the Sooners.
“When you fumble balls, that’s concentration,”Huggins said. “We had to fumble 20 balls. We have to play with an edge, and we didn’t.”
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