No. 12 West Virginia prevails in ugly and physical match-up against Kansas State

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Sean McNeil held the ball toward the West Virginia bench Saturday, as the final seconds ticked off the WVU Coliseum clock.

It was then the flashback from just less than two weeks ago hit, when Kansas’ Silivio De Sousa was running out the clock, only to have DaJuan Gordon sneak up from behind and steal the ball and the play led to a blocked shot and a bar-room brawl seconds later.

BOX SCORE

This time, there was no late-game bare-knuckle boxing, as Kansas State players held back and No. 12 West Virginia came up with a hard-fought 66-57 victory in front of an announced crowd of 14,224.

The brawl between the two schools came over the previous 40 minutes.

Derek Culver was just fine with that.

“Every time we play these guys, it’s going to be a gritty game,” said Culver, who led the Mountaineers with his sixth double-double of the season with 19 points and 14 rebounds. “It’s sort of like a backyard brawl. It’s going to be a low-scoring game, but you’re going to get a lot of stuff in between.”

Like bumps and shoves, constant double-teams, hands in faces and where only the players on the bench are clear from some sort of contact.

“I thought we’d take away their stuff. We’d fight them,” Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said. “We try not to make passes easy. We tell our guys to battle in the post and that is not an easy task against them.”

To a degree, that is how the Mountaineers (17-4, 5-3 Big 12) have created their own formula for success this season.

Make nothing easy. Rebound the ball and be tougher than the opponent.

Get both teams together … “It’s going to be a little ugly,” WVU guard Chase Harler admitted. “Our will to win kind of outweighed our mistakes and we got it done.”

Two weeks ago may have been an exception, as Kansas State’s 84-68 victory over WVU in Manhattan, Kan., saw the Wildcats’ become a shot-making machine that could not be uglied up.

“We didn’t play very well when we went out there. We kind of owed them one,” said Harler, who finished with two 3-pointers and eight points. “It’s a good win for us. Any win in the Big 12 is a good win for us.”

Just how rocky did this game get? Harler’s biggest moment may not have been his 3-pointers.

Instead, the kid from Moundsville got tangled up with K-State forward Xavier Sneed on a box out.

As the ball flew out of bounds with nine minutes remaining, so did Harler and Sneed and Harler’s head was engulfed under Sneed’s right arm in a head lock.

And Harler was called for a foul.

Sneed, too, was whistled seconds later for a deadball foul after referees reviewed the play.

“They said it was a deadball violation,” Harler said. “I don’t know why they really had to review it. I didn’t do anything but box him out.”

Harler, a 50% free-throw shooter on the season, didn’t even get picked by WVU head coach Bob Huggins to shoot the Mountaineers’ free throws after the play.

“Chase came up to me after and said that was a good decision,” Huggins said.

Culver was the only WVU player in double figures.

Sneed (11 points) and David Sloan (13) lead the Wildcats (9-12, 2-6), who were held to just 3 of 17 from 3-point range and to just 36.7% shooting from the floor.

“It wasn’t a good shooting night for anybody, was it?” Huggins asked in his postgame press conference. “We didn’t shoot it. They didn’t shoot it, and it makes it an ugly game.”

WVU will remain at home, where the Mountaineers haven’t lost since last season’s CBI tournament against Coastal Carolina.

The Mountaineers host Iowa State at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Cyclones fell to Texas, 72-68, on Saturday.