Maybe it was destiny.
West Virginia’s previous two losses this season came on trips to Manhattan (St. John’s) and Kansas (Kansas).
Combining the two? A recipe for doom when visiting “The Octagon of Doom” in Manhattan, Kan.
The No. 12 Mountaineers (14-3, 3-2 Big 12) were blown out for the first time this year, getting outclassed in every element of the game in an 84-68 loss to Kansas State at Bramlage Coliseum. The Wildcats (8-9, 1-4) snapped a four-game losing streak to open conference play.
“We weren’t ready,” Bob Huggins said on his postgame radio interview. “They were ready, and they were desperate. Our guys weren’t desperate. They took it to us.”
K-State crossed the 80-point barrier for only the second time this season. The other instance was an 86-41 win over Alabama State, which is ranked 341st of the nation’s 345 teams by kenpom.com.
Kansas State’s defense forced 18 West Virginia turnovers and turned them into 28 points.
Jordan McCabe, Jermaine Haley and Emmitt Matthews were particularly vulnerable against the Wildcats, each committing three turnovers while doing little to compensate for it. That trio matched its turnover total with just nine combined points.
Huggins didn’t have many better options.
Taz Sherman played five minutes off the bench in the first half. His lone shot bounced off the side of the backboard, and he committed two turnovers — including one that essentially served as an assist for a DaJuan Gordon three-pointer — and he was glued to the bench for the entirety of the second half.
The Wildcats feasted from three-point range against a West Virginia defense that came into the game ranked second nationally against long-distance shooting. Kansas State shot 9-for-18 from beyond the arc, well above its season average of 32.3 percent. The Wildcats shot 59 percent (29 of 49) from the field overall.
“We’ve got to run ’em off the line, and run ’em to help,” Huggins said. “We didn’t run ’em off the line. We just let guys stand there and make shots.”
Cartier Diarra proved impossible to stop, scoring a game-high 25 points while hitting 4 of his 6 threes. Gordon nailed a trio of threes on his way to 15 points, and forward Xavier Sneed added another 16 points for the Wildcats.
Though he did not name the culprit, Huggins called out one of his players in his postgame interview.
“I had a guy who came out because he said he was tired from yesterday’s practice,” Huggins said. “He shouldn’t have came.”
West Virginia’s leading scorers were far from the usual suspects. Miles McBride had 11 points, but only shot 4 of 10 from the field. He was joined by Chase Harler, who also had 11. Gabe Osabuohien, averaging 1.8 points per game, scored a West Virginia career-high with 10 points.
Rebounding, which should have been West Virginia’s biggest advantage in the game, was nearly a draw. The Mountaineers only out-rebounded Kansas State by a slim 29-28 edge.
West Virginia nearly shaved off a 24-point deficit in the second half, trimming the margin down to 60-54 with 7:44 left in the game. But the Mountaineers appeared to expend the balance of their energy in that rally. Kansas State responded with a 9-0 spurt of its own to put the game back out of reach with just under five minutes remaining.