Oklahoma hands No. 20 West Virginia its third straight loss, 73-62

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The only thing beaten by West Virginians inside the WVU Coliseum on Saturday was the traffic.

Everything else for the 20th-ranked West Virginia men’s basketball team continued to be a fairy tale turned horror story, as Oklahoma pulled off a regular-season sweep of WVU with a 73-62 victory.

Most of the 14,044 in attendance — possibly a slight nod toward former great Rod Thorn having his No. 44 jersey retired at halftime — were already exiting the arena and heading to their cars with seven minutes still left.

BOX SCORE

By that time, Oklahoma (18-11, 8-8 Big 12) had already run up a 59-38 lead and West Virginia’s offense had been whittled down to nothing more than standing around waiting for something to happen.

“We get in these spells where we’re not making shots and we’re waiting to see what happens next,” WVU guard Chase Harler said. “We don’t keep pushing the action or try to make something happen until it’s too late.”

Before that, the boo-birds could be heard, too, as the frustrations that have come with WVU recording its second three-game losing skid this month has spilled out of the team’s locker room and into the fan base.

“If you want to blame a leader, blame me,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “That’s my responsibility.”

It is the responsibility of Huggins’ players to make shots, which they have not as of late.

WVU was held to just 24 of 70 shooting (34.3%) against the Sooners, but it may have been worse than that, because a putback attempt from Jermaine Haley with 2:19 left wasn’t recorded in the official stats.

And as far as stats, Oklahoma actually had three points taken off its total after two official reviews, one on the final play of the first half that ended with still 1.6 showing on the clock and another that changed a Jamal Bieniemy 3-pointer to a two-point bucket.

The refs could offer no more help than that, though, and O.U. forward Kristian Doolitte led the Sooners with 19 points after scoring 27 against WVU in the first meeting.

Brady Manek added 15 points for the Sooners. West Virginia was led by Miles McBride’s 13 points. He scored 10 of those in the second half and no other WVU player reached double figures in scoring.

“We had some trouble keeping them off of their offensive board, but we had a good stretch there in the second half to move the ball and make plays for each other and knock down some shots to create a little bit of a margin,” Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said. “Really good win. Any time you can win anywhere in this conference is great. To win on the road is a bonus, so I know how special that is.”

As for the Mountaineers (19-10, 7-9), who were once listed by the NCAA selection committee as a potential No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament in early Feb., they are now in a fight just to stay out of the ninth place in the Big 12.

The league standings after Saturday’s action saw WVU in a tie for sixth place with TCU, but the Horned Frogs’ upset of Baylor on Saturday gave TCU the tiebreaker against WVU.

Iowa State and Oklahoma State are also in position to catch the Mountaineers if WVU’s struggles continue. Iowa State hosts the Mountaineers on Wednesday in what represents WVU’s final true road game of the season before a regular-season finale against No. 2 Baylor next weekend.

The top six teams in the Big 12 earn a first-round bye in the conference tournament later this month.

At this point, there is no telling if WVU remains a team with any fight left in it.

“You would hope that we have enough fight to us that we bounce back,” Huggins said. “I don’t know. I’d have to go back to the early days before we ever lost four in a row. Most of the time guys, at least my guys when they get on a losing streak, they come out ready to fight. We didn’t have a lot of fight in us.

“Maybe it’s the kind of guys they are. We have good guys. I keep telling you that. They’re good people.”