MORGANTOWN — They celebrated Saturday. On the court. In the stands with their fellow students.
“It was just happiness,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said after the Mountaineers held off TCU for a 70-64 victory in front of 11,324 fans inside the Coliseum. “I feel like when we win, everyone is happy. I saw Pauly (Paulicap) run over there, so I just went over there.”
For just a moment, as fleeting as it may have been, you forgot the disappointment that has come with this season.
In that moment, you wouldn’t have known the Mountaineers (15-16, 4-14 Big 12) had just ended a streak in which they lost 14 of 15 games.
Rather, you would have thought WVU had just secured the No. 1 seed for next week’s Big 12 tournament.
Obviously, that’s not the case. WVU is destined to enter Kansas City as the last-place team and the
No. 9 seed. It will be forced to play Kansas State in the opening round at 7 p.m. Wednesday with the winner playing the No. 1 seed in the quarterfinals.
“It’s still special,” WVU guard Sean McNeil said about what may be his final game inside the Coliseum. “I kind of took it all in. Obviously we haven’t had the season we all wanted, but the fact we still had — I don’t know how many were in there today — but it was awesome.”
If nothing else, what can be said positively about this WVU bunch is it never truly just gave up.
“When you finally get a win after a long stretch without winning for the fans that are still there and in front of your family members, it was just amazing,” Sherman said. “I’m glad my team pulled off the win. We’re resilient. A lot of teams could have just laid it down and just played out the last couple of games and never thought about anything. We’re fighters still.”
They were fighters when so many believe there is nothing to fight for.
In the world of ifs and buts, that didn’t exactly have to be the story of this team.
If Sherman doesn’t get COVID-19 in January or get knocked cold in the final minutes on the road against Baylor. If WVU could have inbounded the ball late against Iowa State. If Malik Curry’s last-second jumper had gone one more inch over the rim against Texas.
None of those things went the Mountaineers’ way. In truth, it almost happened again Saturday against the Horned Frogs (19-11, 8-10), who trailed 47-40 early in the second half, only to come back to take a 59-53 lead with 6:28 to go.
“We almost did it today,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “You can’t throw the ball to the other team. That’s what we talked about in the huddle, ‘Let’s not do this again.’ Don’t give it to them. If they beat us, make them beat us.”
That hasn’t been the case for much of this season. Opponents didn’t exactly go out and take it more than WVU making bad mistakes or simply playing really bad defense to hand other teams a bunch of wins.
That story was not repeated this time. On Senior Day for seven seniors, it was the older guys who finally got this team over the hump.
Gabe Osabuohien drew four offensive fouls and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Kedrian Johnson, playing as hurt as one could be, came up with a crucial steal with 1:30 remaining to preserve WVU’s 62-60 lead at the time.
Sherman finished with 25 points. McNeil made critical free throws.
Paulicap was a ball of energy and played very much like a big man, even though he is well undersized.
“We talked about how close we’ve been and just haven’t finished,” Huggins said. “That was their message today, that they were going to finish this one.”
Finished they did, if just for one day and then they celebrated.
It was not the type of celebration that was once pictured for these guys, but truth be told, there are other examples out there of college basketball life being much worse.
If this is truly as bad as it gets for WVU, then there is something to be said for that on another day.
On this day, the WVU players were fighters. They were proud. They were winners.
“I felt like the difference between this game and all of the other ones, when a team went on their run, we responded,” Sherman said. “That was a big difference. We got down, but we kept playing with a lot of energy.”
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