Column: Tough road ahead, especially for teams that must face West Virginia

Esa Ahmad, Jonathan Holton and other players for No. 11 West Virginia celebrate following a 74-63 win over No. 1 Kansas on Tuesday at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, W.Va.

COMMENTARY

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Kansas was supposed to be savvy with the basketball, yet committed 22 turnovers.

Kansas was supposedly a multi-dimensional offensive machine, but aside from Perry Ellis, no other part looked plugged in.

Kansas was supposed to be superior, yet this week’s lame-duck No. 1 team trailed for the final 31 minutes at West Virginia, much of that by double figures.

And as Bill Self admitted afterward, to ridicule the Jayhawks’ many failings is to undersell No. 11 West Virginia’s role in creating the mess.

“We put our foot down,” said Mountaineers double-double man Devin Williams.

The begoggled forward lectured teammates over the weekend about what was “attainable” should they aim high—namely, for the Big 12 championship that has belonged to Kansas for an astounding 11 consecutive seasons. Several players accused Williams of making up a word, which only proves they’re better at rebounding and defending than Scrabble.

After winning 74-63 on Tuesday night, the league crown is indeed attainable, though still a far, far away prize. After holding serve, protecting its house or whatever platitude you choose for this one-sided outcome, West Virginia owns a one-game edge on Kansas. The edge in terms of moxie feels greater.

Consider Ellis put up 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting, yet will most remember two shots that were erased at the rim. First Jonathan Holton sprinted back in transition to stuff Ellis’ dunk attempt, an OMG moment though it was, to be precise, 6-foot-8 on 6-foot-8.

Later in the game, 6-3 Tarik Phillip delivered the bigger message by swatting Ellis’ layup off the backboard.

“Yeah, I punched that one,” Phillip said.

Attacking from 360 degrees, West Virginia’s pressure defense sapped all the poise points Kansas earned while winning its previous 13 games. “Atrocious” was Self’s description of the ball security, apt for Frank Mason’s halfcourt jump-pass that landed beyond the baseline and should’ve been flagged for intentional grounding.

Mason wilted with seven turnovers, temporarily puncturing some of his All-American buzz. Wayne Selden Jr., after showing signs of maturing into a takeover wing player, committed six more turnovers. That followed the nine he coughed up in two meetings against WVU last season.

“If you’d have told me Selden would have that many turnovers, I’d have believed it, but Frank? Nah,” Phillip said. “Just shows the great defense our guards play.”

Selden couldn’t offer a defense for his team’s unwillingness to combat West Virginia: “They were men and we weren’t.”

As students covered the court after a third consecutive home win over the Jayhawks, Phillip jokingly tried to downplay the setting: “I felt like I had been there before. It was deja vu.”

Only his pride was uncontainable. Beating Kansas will never feel mundane, especially not when it primes the Mountaineers to interrupt KU’s seemingly endless string of Big 12 titles.

“There’s 14 more games to play in this league,” cautioned WVU coach Bob Huggins. “Fourteen more hard, hard games.”

Thing is, given the doggedness of Huggins’ unit, those 14 may be harder on the teams that have to face West Virginia.





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