MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — For the first 20 minutes, West Virginia had played out its 91-79 victory Saturday against No. 23 Kansas exactly as it had planned.
By halftime, WVU led, 44-34, Derek Culver had dominated in the paint and the Mountaineers had made seven shots from behind the arc.
It took all of the first two minutes of the second half for the Jayhawks (12-7, 6-5 Big 12) to erase the deficit, which forced WVU head coach Bob Huggins to call a timeout.
“A lot of yelling,” is the way WVU point guard Deuce McBride described that timeout. “You know that expectations our high in a game like this and every possession counts, so when you get a lead, you have to do everything you can to maintain that lead. Obviously, we gave it back to them. There was a lot of motivation in that huddle.”
The No. 17 Mountaineers (13-5, 6-3) responded with a quick 4-0 run out of the timeout, but the Jayhawks kept the game close until five minutes remained.
WVU outscored Kansas, 17-10 in the last five minutes.
“I think we challenged them,” Huggins said of his timeout. “We have been there before. We have done that before, and the results haven’t been good.
“It was more challenging them and them responding to the challenge more than anything else.”
With the win
* WVU entered Saturday in a four-way tie for second place in the Big 12, along with Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma.
By the end of the day’s match-ups, WVU is now only tied with Oklahoma for second place. The Sooners held off Iowa State on Saturday, 79-72, while Oklahoma State knocked off Texas in double overtime, 75-67.
Both Oklahoma and WVU trail No. 2 Baylor by three games in the conference standings.
* Kansas will end its national record of 321 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 25 poll next week.
The No. 23 Jayhawks have lost five of their last seven games. It will be the first time Kansas hasn’t been nationally ranked since January 2009.
“It’s going to make (the poll) look different, but this whole year has been different for all of the blue bloods,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said. “The whole year has been different, so maybe this is a good chance to have some new scenery.”
News and notes
* Kansas never led in the game, but pulled to within a tie three times. WVU led for 37 minutes, 51 seconds.
* WVU had 73 possessions in the game and scored on 39 of them. The Mountaineers averaged 1.25 points per possession.
* WVU shot 84.2% from the foul line (16 of 19), its best shooting night from the line since going 20 of 22 against Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Big 12 tournament.
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