MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — No. 13 West Virginia made the wrong kind of history at the worst possible time Friday night.
In front of a season-opening crowd of 12,657 at the WVU Coliseum, the Mountaineers lost a 13-point lead in regulation and looked helpless in defending Buffalo guard CJ Massinburg in a 99-94 overtime loss.
Massinburg, a senior from Dallas, drilled a game-tying 33-footer with 16 seconds remaining in regulation. He was big in overtime, too, and finished with 43 points on nine 3-pointers, while adding 14 rebounds.
“Our whole deal for four days was don’t let him get started,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said of Massinburg. “Don’t leave him wide open and let him get open, because he’s going to make shots. We let him get started.”
It was the first time WVU allowed an opposing player to score 40 or more since Kansas standout Andrew Wiggins went for 41 on March 8, 2014.
The Mountaineers (0-1) lost a season opener at home for the first time since November 1988, when Gale Catlett’s group fell to Robert Morris.
The Bulls (2-0) erased a 71-58 deficit over the final 7-plus minutes of regulation.
Buffalo started 3-of-21 from 3-point range, but with Massinburg heating up, they went 8-of-16 the rest of the way.
“He was having one of those nights. Everything he was throwing up was going in,” West Virginia forward Esa Ahmad said. “Hats off to him. He played well, but we have to play better.”
Until Massinburg’s hot shooting, it looked like the spotlight would belong to West Virginia point guard Beetle Bolden, who was thought to have a 50-50 chance of even playing in the game, because of stretched ligaments in his left shooting hand.
Playing with the hand heavily taped up, Bolden finished with 21 points, four rebounds and four assists. But the junior fell to the floor after challenging a Massinburg 3 with 2:55 remaining in regulation. He laid near the scorer’s table for several seconds with an apparent leg injury and the Mountaineers holding on to a slim 81-79 lead. Teammates Jordan McCabe and Trey Doomes helped him to the locker room.
“I thought [the trainers] said he cramped,” Huggins said. “That’s highly possible. He tried [to come back.] He was running over on the treadmill while he was out. He cramped up. He got four or five stitches in his eye, too, but it wasn’t a foul.”
Bolden did not return to action, and West Virginia fell apart without him.
“It would have made a huge difference,” to have Bolden in the game, Huggins said. “He wouldn’t have thrown it in the stands.”
The Mountaineers fell to 9-3 in openers under Huggins and have lost the last two, including last season’s setback against Texas A&M in Germany.
It was the first meeting between the WVU and Buffalo since the 2015 NCAA tournament, when the Mountaineers held on for a 68-62 first-round win.
The Bulls dominated Arizona last March in the NCAAs, but coach Nate Oats thought this one was tougher.
“We’ve never beat a team on the road that is a top-25 team,” he said. “Even though it is not the NCAA tournament, it’s probably a bigger win.”
When Buffalo held a first-half lead, Bolden brought a sense of calm to the Mountaineers. It wasn’t always his scoring, although he hit two 3-pointers in the final 5:25 that helped WVU grab a 38-30 halftime lead.
It was Bolden’s overall play that meant the most — a key assist, drawing an offensive foul, a steal, getting guys in the right place at the right time.
The day before the game Huggins called the point guard “courageous” for practicing through the pain of the thumb injury.
Pretty tough, too. Bolden dove on the floor for a steal and a lay-up that gave the Mountaineers a 56-48 lead with 12:05 remaining. Then he leaped over Buffalo’s Dontay Caruthers to snare an offensive rebound that led to two free throws.
“He’s only practiced a week,” Huggins said. “He hurt that thing the first day. He’s out there diving on the floor and taking charges and doing all of that stuff, while our other guys are standing there watching him.”
Without Bolden, WVU lost its offensive flow just when Massinburg was finding his.
In the overtime, Massinburg’s drive to the basket gave the Bulls a 93-86 lead with 2:07 left, and WVU’s offense could only muster some meaningless baskets at the end to cut into Buffalo’s advantage.
Lamont West scored 22 points with nine rebounds for the Mountaineers, who will travel to next week’s Myrtle Beach Invitational to face Monmouth in the opener of a three-game tournament.
Ahmad and Sagaba Konate each added 15 points.
“We didn’t have all five guys playing as hard as they could the whole time they were on the floor,” West said. “That’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in. We knew before the game who their best shooter was, which was [Massinburg]. We didn’t guard him well. He just got hot and got that confidence. Once he got hot, there was nothing we could do. Well, there was something we could do, but we didn’t do it.”