COLUMBUS, Ohio — Knowing that rebounding is dirty work typically, and rebounding during the final 2 minutes can be downright nasty, Devin Williams hit the floor for a crucial play Friday afternoon at the NCAA tournament.
West Virginia led by just two points with Buffalo in position to grab Gary Browne’s missed 3-pointer when Williams made a lunging deflection and dove atop the ball in the lane. As Browne signaled timeout, Williams cradled his ninth and final rebound with 1:02 left.
Tarik Phillip’s 3-pointer 34 seconds later clinched the Mountaineers’ 68-62 win, but the reserve guard wasn’t hogging the credit.
“If Devin don’t dive on that ball, then we don’t get that shot,” Phillip said.
Williams’ team-high 17 points included several momentum-changing baskets, though he worked hard for each one, leading to a postgame assessment of Buffalo that should have been its own commercial:
“We wanted to make Buffalo Wild Wings out of them, and we did, but they were the blazing ones, they were kicking,” he said. “They gave us a fight, gave us everything they had.”
Williams opened strong—kicking a pass to Daxter Miles for a 3 and drawing a charge on MAC player of the year Justin Moss, all in the first 28 seconds.
WVU’s sophomore forward, who grew up 90 minutes away in Cincinnati, subsequently shot 5-of-6 from the floor and made 7-of-9 free throws. He would have attempted two more foul shots but had to limp out of the game after tangling legs on a rebounding foul by Will Regan.
Luckily for West Virginia, Williams was healthy enough to return at the next stoppage and played the final 6:20, and nimble enough to go for the late-game loose ball that Bob Huggins called a “huge play.”
“Wannie said he was getting ready to dive on it,” Huggins added, “but then he saw the big body come flying in there, so he got out of the way.”
His first of taste of March Madness satiated, Williams admitted the intensity from Buffalo was next-level.
“I can’t believe it’s the round of 64—it feels like the Elite Eight the way we were out there,” he said. “They gave us everything they had. They deserved to be here. Whoever we play deserves to be here.”
Hurley not satisfied: Though Buffalo never led, it wasn’t flustered by a 13-point first-half hole, and subsequently tied the game after trailing 55-44 with 11:16 left.
But after Xavier Ford’s 3-pointer equalized it at 62-all, Buffalo didn’t score over the final 2:51.
“It’s a hard loss, because we didn’t come in here satisfied by being the champion of our league,” Bulls coach Bobby Hurley said. “We felt we had a team that could win games in the tournament. We were a couple of possessions here or there from that happening.
“We were finished with moral victories when we were at Kentucky and Wisconsin. We had the mindset of coming here, trying to win this basketball game and advancing.”
Staten plays 33 minutes: Returning after a four-game absence, Juwan Staten delivered on his pledge to play full-speed despite a left knee injury. He scored 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting and doled out seven assists.
Gary Browne, back from an ankle injury, finished with five points and three assists in 27 minutes. He grabbed three rebounds, the final one jumping into traffic after a Buffalo miss with 20 seconds.
“We’re trying to win a national championship,” he said. “If I have to lose an ankle, I’ll do it.”
Running afoul: Huggins became so incensed over one call he yelled toward his father sitting several several rows away, “We’re getting screwed worse than at Kansas!”
The overall foul disparity was nominal—with West Virginia committing 25 to Buffalo’s 24—though the inconsistencies of college officiating remains an incendiary topic.
Staten took all the stoppages in stride.
“This game was pretty common for us—we’ve been fouling all year,” he said. “This is something that we were familiar with, but that’s how we play. We play hard and you can’t always control how the fouls go, but you can control how hard you play. So we just played through anything and we try to keep it ugly, because we’re used to the ugly games.”
Big 12 redemption: West Virginia was shocked to see conference members Iowa State, Baylor and Texas bounced by Thursday upsets.
“We didn’t want to be another statistic,” Phillip said. “We was all tuned in, we had them on every channel. We didn’t want to go down like that.”