MORGANTOWN — West Virginia nearly pulled off the comeback of a lifetime Monday night.
Nearly.
Instead, it was Kansas State that ended up making history, winning its 12th consecutive overtime game in a 94-90 victory inside Bramlage Coliseum.
The 12 straight overtime wins dates back to last season, and K-State (17-11, 7-8 Big 12) was money again, making 3 of 4 shots and 8 of 10 free throws in the extra period.
“It’s disappointing, very disappointing,” WVU head coach Josh Eilert said on his radio postgame show. “To come in here and be that close, you’re one bounce away or one timely call away.”
Over the first 27 minutes of the game, WVU (9-19, 4-11) getting this game into overtime wasn’t an option.
Kansas State, which entered the game as the worst 3-point shooting team in the Big 12, of course came right out of the shoot and hit 11 of 19 from behind the arc.
“We can’t dig ourselves a hole like that,” Eilert said. “Their guys were backing us down and getting a two-footer and we didn’t have hands up on the shooters or getting to the shooters.
“We couldn’t get a rebound. Nothing was going right. We had to throw our game plan out pretty quick in the first half.”
By the time there was just 13 minutes left in regulation, K-State had its biggest lead of 66-41.
That sounded just about right, as WVU entered the game without a victory away from Morgantown this season, with some of its more lopsided losses coming on the road.
And then RaeQuan Battle and Kerr Kriisa teamed up and said, ‘Let’s try and change all of that.”
Kriisa started making 3-pointers of his own — he finished with five of them in all to finish with a season-high 25 points — and Battle got to a point where it didn’t matter if he was being hounded by a K-State defender.
He hit off-balanced threes and then took off a couple of steps below the foul line and threw down a thunderous dunk. Battle finished with 28 points and was 6 of 9 from 3-point range.
It was the ninth time in 18 games this season Battle scored more than 20 points.
“I challenged them at halftime, and give them credit, they came out and responded,” Eilert said.
In what ended up being a 31-7 run in just under 11 minutes, Seth Wilson hit a key 3-pointer and Quinn Slazinski added a key bucket with a one-handed floater along the baseline.
But it was the Kriisa and Battle show all along.
Kriisa gave WVU its first lead of the second half, 77-74, with a 3-pointer with 2:13 left. He canned two free throws for a 79-75 lead a minute later.
Then disaster struck. First, it was Kansas State center Will McNair grabbing an airball and scoring it to cut WVU’s lead 79-77 with 51 seconds left.
WVU center Jesse Edwards struggled the entire game, and when he went to the foul line with 24 seconds left, he missed both, and K-State tied the game moments later when Tyler Perry made two free throws that sent the game into overtime.
Edwards made just 1 of 9 shots from the field and he was 3 of 9 from the foul line before fouling out of the game in overtime.
“He’s very capable, but we’ve just got to get that balance,” Eilert said of Edwards. “We’ve got to get his head up on the rim and sometimes he’s rushing things and not even shooting it on the turn. He’s got to get his balance and composure down there.”
Overall, the Mountaineers didn’t help their chances at getting a rare road win by going 17 of 26 from the foul line.
WVU’s last shot in regulation saw Kriisa run off nearly 14 seconds of the clock, before hoisting up a jump shot that came up short. Edwards grabbed the rebound and appeared to get bumped, but the referees ruled regulation had come to an end.
WVU’s only lead in overtime was brief, an 80-79 advantage coming from a free throw from Edwards.
From there, Perry hit a big 3-pointer — he finished with six threes and 29 points — and McNair got behind both Battle and Pat Suemnick on another play for a lay-up that gave K-State an 85-80 lead.
WVU did get as close as 90-91 with 12.3 seconds left after Kriisa made two free throws, but then Perry made two himself.
Battle took a long inbounds pass with 8.8 seconds left and got a good look at 3-pointer that could have tied it, but it was the only big shot he missed all night.
Cam Carter went 1 of 2 from the line with 4.1 seconds left for the final score, as the Mountaineers fell to 0-12 in games played away from the Coliseum this season.
