KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Between scoring 22 points in Friday night’s Big 12 semifinal and plunging into a postgame ice bath, Daxter Miles paused courtside for a question: What does he anticipate for the championship round against Kansas?
“Gonna be one hell of a game,” he said.
The first two meetings certainly offered hellacious storylines — those dueling Kansas comebacks, and that 35-2 free-throw disparity in Lawrence which lit the fuse on Bob Huggins.
“Those games are in the past,” WVU assistant Erik Martin said. “You can’t get ‘em back.”
Had the Mountaineers kept their cool and won either of those regular-season games, they would’ve shared the Big 12 title. Instead, Saturday’s tournament finale affords a chance for a consolation prize.
“We want to go out with a bang. It’s our last year,” point guard Jevon Carter said. “If we win (Saturday) we can hang a banner. It’s everything we ever dreamed of.”
Kansas (26-7) could lock up an NCAA tournament No. 1 seed but must do so without 7-footer Udoka Azubuike. He’s sitting out the Big 12 tournament in order to rest a knee he injured this week in practice.
Jayhawks coach Bill Self is trying to squeeze motivation from the absence of a big-bodied freshman averaging 13.7 points and 7.1 rebounds.
“I’m excited to see how our guys react to playing tomorrow because we won two games with Udoka, and I think it would mean an awful lot to our players to be able to win three without Udoka,” Self said.
Mountaineers center Sagaba Konate won’t be wrestling with Azubuike in the post. Instead he’ll face sophomore Mitch Lightfoot and freshman Silvio De Sousa.
“It’s Kansas, so we’re going to be ready to go,” Konate said.
KU transfer guard Malik Newman has 52 points in his first two games at Sprint Center. Yet Newman didn’t accomplished much against WVU this season, shooting 5-of-19.
No. 18 West Virginia (24-8) vs. No. 9 Kansas (26-7)
Tipoff: Saturday, 6 p.m. in Kansas City (ESPN)
The skinny: With a convincing win there’s a slight possibility West Virginia could climb to an NCAA 3-seed.
Quotable: “When you play three games in three days, it’s hard to play the way we play, but it’s also hard for (opponents) to play against it.” — Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins
RPI: West Virginia 26, Kansas 6
Prediction: West Virginia 76-72