It was just a day earlier when Joe Toussaint sat in front of a microphone and said offense is not what would lead the WVU men’s basketball team back to national relevance.
This coming from a point guard — a New York-born point guard at that — the one position on a basketball team who is in charge of generating offense.
In that context, Toussaint’s words were like Tom Brady talking about the art of the kicking game.
“Defensively is where our mind is,” Toussaint said Tuesday, a day before WVU knocked off No. 11 Iowa State 76-71 inside the Coliseum. “Obviously you have to score the ball, but defensively is where we have to pick it up. We’ve let a lot of teams off the hook with not showing enough effort.”
Yet now it was a little more than 24 hours later, and WVU was just two possessions away from securing a third victory this season against an AP Top 25 opponent.
It’s a 72-71 WVU lead in a game that was physical, filled with fouls and, at times, just plain ugly.
But don’t mistake ugly for a lack of excitement. On this night, WVU proved it was capable of digging itself out of the giant hole it leaped into at the start of Big 12 play.
At the same time, Iowa State was not going to back down, which is what one would expect from the 11th-ranked team in the country.
The clock is ticking. It’s under 20 seconds when Kedrian Johnson drove into the lane and tried to flip a pass to James Okonkwo that got tipped away.
Suddenly Iowa State guard Caleb Grill is off and running for what appears to be a runaway lay-up.
Except Toussaint is there, the last line of defense between Iowa State taking the lead or the Mountaineers holding on to some momentum.
Maybe Toussaint got a hand on the ball. Going by Grill’s reaction, Toussaint may have gotten more of Grill’s arm than the ball, but he missed the lay-up and Okonkwo came up with the rebound and got it to Toussaint, who was immediately fouled.
He made both free throws for a 74-71 lead.
Now there are nine seconds left and Iowa State’s Jaren Holmes is trying to create some space along the sideline.
And Toussaint was there again.
As Holmes tried to move along the sideline, Toussaint held his ground.
There was contact. To be sure, there was nothing but contact throughout this whole game that saw a combined 49 fouls whistled and four players foul out.
Toussaint was on the ground and celebrating. Holmes was called for an offensive foul and this game was sealed when Emmitt Matthews Jr. hauled in the ensuing inbounds pass, was fouled, and made both free throws to end the game.
“It’s just Joe’s presence on the court,” Johnson said. “He’s fast, kind of small and real active. I think that bothered the offensive player. When he’s not even pressuring, they’re worried about if he’s going to reach for the ball or if he’s going to cut them off. His presence is big for us on the court.”
That is certainly one way of looking at it. Iowa State head coach T.J. Otzelberger saw his team simply not taking advantage of the late-game opportunities.
“On that play at the rim, I don’t know exactly what happened,” Otzelberger said. “I didn’t have a great angle on it. At the end of the game, I’m going to trust Jaren with the ball in his hands to make that play. We’re going to trust those guys to make those plays in those situations. We need to do the best we can to make them.”
The plays weren’t made, though, and if this season ends up in the NCAA tournament for the Mountaineers, those two plays made by Toussaint should be remembered greatly.
TWEET @bigjax3211
