Kari Niblack's offensive rebound leads No. 19 West Virginia past Texas

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Kari Niblack admitted afterward she didn’t realize it was a missed free throw that she had just grabbed for maybe the most important offensive rebound of the season for West Virginia.

All she knew, “Honestly, it was just me doing what I do,” the sophomore forward said after No. 19 WVU held off Texas, 68-63, on Sunday in front of 3,477 fans inside the Coliseum. “Everyone knows me for getting rebounds. Everyone was talking in the locker room about the first free throw going in. I don’t even remember it being a free throw. I just know a shot went up and I was just trying to get the ball.”

BOX SCORE

Trailing, 61-60, with 44 seconds left, Niblack somehow fought past Texas center Charli Collier and grabbed Kysre Gondrezick’s missed free throw.

From there, “Upon getting the ball, I saw Collier on me and, I think, Joyner Holmes was on me, too. I was like, ‘Somebody come get this ball.’ Then I saw Kysre.”

Gondrezick had moved over to the 3-point line opposite the WVU bench and Niblack whipped a pass to her for what ended up being the most important assist of the game.

Gondrezick nailed a 3-pointer — “Absolutely. I knew it was in. I started running away when I shot it,” she said — that gave the Mountaineers a 63-61 lead with 39 seconds left and the Longhorns (9-6, 1-2 Big 12) never recovered.

“You don’t ever want to say one play is the difference, but Big 12 games are going to come down to possessions,” Texas coach Karen Aston said. “I would think we could make a box out with the game on the line, but the way we played for almost two-and-half quarters is more the reason. You can’t show up and play like that against a team like West Virginia.”

At one point in the third quarter, West Virginia (13-1, 3-0) saw its lead grow to 13 points and was cruising.

That’s where Niblack’s story on this day began.

While fighting for one of her 12 rebounds with Texas forward Audrey Warren, both players went hard to the ground and Warren appeared to land directly on Niblack’s left knee.

Warren got up. Niblack did not.

“I screamed,” Niblack said. “Everyone says I’m dramatic. That thing hurt.”

She was helped off to the locker room and returned to the bench four minutes later with the knee wrapped in a bandage.

“I told Kari that she had a lot of heart coming back into the game,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “She said she didn’t her me. I told her that she didn’t listen to me for 40 minutes anyway. She showed a lot of heart. A lot of players wouldn’t have come back from that.”

By the time Niblack returned to start the fourth quarter, Texas had erased the deficit and had taken a 48-47 lead when Sug Sutton stole an inbounds pass and hit a shot to beat the third-quarter buzzer.

“We didn’t want to get too down on ourselves, because we still had another 10 minutes to recover,” said Gondrezick, who finished with 21 points, six rebounds and four assists. “Losing that lead, I could say we got a little bit antsy and a little nervous. At the end of the day, we’ve been in those situations before.”

The fourth quarter was a back-and-forth affair, which is what you would expect from two of the better teams in the Big 12.

It came down to one play, which began with Celeste Taylor missing a 3-pointer with 48 seconds remaining with the Longhorns leading, 61-59.

Blessing Ejifor grabbed the rebound and got the ball to Gondrezick, who drew a foul.

She made the first attempt to cut into the lead and then missed the second, which set up Niblack’s heroics.

“She’s the one who made the play, even though I’ll probably get credit for making the shot,” Gondrezick said. “If she doesn’t get that offensive rebound, we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to score, let alone take the lead. That changed the full momentum of the game.”

Tynice Martin scored a game-high 23 points in a win that keeps the Mountaineers at the top of the Big 12 standings.

Texas was led by Sutton’s 18 points and Holmes finished with nine points and 10 rebounds.

WVU will host Oklahoma at 7 p.m. Wednesday.