MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Let’s get the obvious out of the way.
West Virginia’s 84-82 victory over No. 12 Texas on Saturday was a thrill ride at every turn with more cliffhangers than a daytime soap opera.
Once down 19 points, WVU rode Sean McNeil’s offense — all 16 of his points came in the second half — and the Longhorns, who shot an amazing 70% in the first half, was held to just 29 points in the second half.
It tied for WVU’s largest comeback in a Big 12 game, and this one wasn’t over until the absolute final second, when Texas forward Jericho Sims had his tip-in attempt at the buzzer come up short.
The list of heroes for the Mountaineers — now in fourth place in the Big 12 standings — was long.
Taz Sherman came off the bench to score 14. Deuce McBride had 17. Emmitt Matthews Jr. hustled all game and came away with 14 points and seven rebounds.
Texas did not score a single point in the final 2:55.
All of it headline worthy and definitely worth our praise, but none of it was the real story.
The real story of this game came down to one shot and one player, and it is a story of just how glorious and heartbreaking this game can be.
We flash back to Jan. 9, back when Texas guard Andrew Jones hauled in a pass from teammate Courtney Ramey and buried a 3-pointer from the deep corner with 1.8 seconds left that lifted the Longhorns to a dramatic 72-70 victory inside the WVU Coliseum.
For Texas fans, that was glory. It was heartbreak on Saturday.
There are 6.8 seconds remaining. Texas trails, 84-82, and the Longhorns have the ball underneath their own basket.
Jones is the one charged with inbounding the ball and he finds teammate Matt Coleman III, who dribbled the ball out to the top of the key.
While Coleman dribbled, Jones came from out of bounds and went off a screen set by teammate Jericho Sims and found himself wide open at the 3-point line.
“He’s a hell of a player,” Matthews said of Jones. “He’s done everything he’s supposed to do. He was open and we lost him.”
Now, I don’t exactly know how you lose a player on defense that just beat you a month earlier, but it happened.
Coleman whipped a pass to Jones, just three years removed from a leukemia diagnosis, and Jones took the shot.
“He shot it and he said, ‘Game,’ so I knew he was going to miss when he said that,” Matthews said. “Not a lot of people can really be that confident to call game and make that shot in that situation.”
In Morgantown, Jones’ shot rang true. In Austin, Tex., it came off the rim.
True, the Longhorns had one last opportunity with the tip-in, once the missed shot went off Matthews with 0.3 seconds left, but Jones’ shot was the story.
If he had made it again, my goodness, he would have been a legend in Texas, the most-hated villain in West Virginia.
“Tonight was just not their night,” Matthews continued. “He was open, but just missed the shot.”
“He was open.” Matthews could not have said anything more true.
I have a hard time heaping praise on the defensive adjustments made by the Mountaineers, of which there were many after Texas couldn’t miss in the first half, if you’re simply going to lose track of a guy at the absolute wrong time.
If you play good defense for 19 minutes of a 20-minute half, but lose by one point on another wide open 3-pointer in the final seconds, is anyone going to remember that as a good defensive half?
They shouldn’t.
“He said, ‘Game.’ That’s just something everybody says when they have an opportunity to take a game-winner,” Matthews said. “It looked good from where I was at, but it wasn’t.”
It wasn’t, and maybe that was just the basketball gods evening everything out.
Jones beat West Virginia in a game the Mountaineers led for 33 minutes back in January.
He missed on Saturday, when the Longhorns led for 33 minutes.
Everything else is just filler. There were great plays, great stats and a dramatic ending.
But, that shot, that moment, just how lucky were the Mountaineers as the ball left Jones’ hands and flew through the air?
Sometimes a little luck doesn’t hurt and no one on that WVU team cares today if it took a lot of luck to pull that game out.
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