MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Four of West Virginia’s five losses in Big 12 play have come by five points or less. The Mountaineers lost by four at Oklahoma after overcoming an 18-point deficit, on a buzzer-beating three against Texas, by a point in double overtime to the Sooners and by five in overtime Tuesday to league champion Baylor.
Those are some narrow margins within a conference that will send seven of its ten teams to the NCAA Tournament, and all seven could realistically be seeded no lower than fourth.
“Everybody knew this was going to be a great game. That’s why it was heavily watched. We brought our ‘A-game’ and they brought theirs,” said WVU sophomore guard Deuce McBride. “They just executed a little bit better at the end and throughout the whole game.”
In Tuesday’s 94-89 win over the Mountaineers, Baylor was able to score five points on their final possessions of the first and second halves. After a deadball turnover on WVU with 1.4 seconds left in the first half, Jared Butler connected on a corner three-pointer at the buzzer. Butler also sent the game to overtime with a drive to the hoop with less than three seconds remaining in regulation.
Another defensive lapse in the final minute of overtime pushed WVU’s deficit from one point to three points. Trailing 90-89 with 34 seconds left, the Mountaineers fouled guard Adam Flagler, who is an 83 percent free throw shooter.
“We fouled the wrong guy. We wanted to foul (Mark) Vital (who shoots 47% from the line). We said to let him catch it and then foul Vital. So what do we do? We fouled a guard who promptly goes down and makes two free throws. A lot of that is youth. We played today against men. Those were men,” said WVU head coach Bob Huggins.
The Mountaineers were also victimized by a season-high point total from Baylor junior Matthew Mayer. He entered the game averaging less than eight points per game. Mayer scored 18 against WVU on 7-for-12 shooting from the floor.
“We watched a lot of film and Mayer wasn’t making shots. They run two ghost screens and he gets two wide open shots, two threes and he makes them. We are screaming at them not to switch it. We didn’t switch it and we ran at him and he drove by us and scored. He hurt us,” Huggins said.
Four Mountaineers scored in double figures but second-leading scorer Derek Culver did not. Culver went 9-for-10 from the free throw line but was 0-for-3 from the floor.
“He is a double-double machine. I think Baylor knew that going in that they wanted to be as aggressive as they can with him,” McNeil said. “We definitely have to get him the ball more,” said WVU junior guard Sean McNeil.
“He chased the ball too much. But he chased the ball because he wasn’t getting it because they put really, really good ball pressure on our guys. Our guys were fighting the ball pressure and when they are fighting the ball pressure they are not looking to throw it into Derek. So Derek chases it, which is human nature,” Huggins said.
West Virginia’s (17-7, 10-5 Big 12) regular season-ending homestand continues Thursday against TCU. The Mountaineers defeated the Horned Frogs, 74-66 last week in Fort Worth. If WVU defeats TCU and Oklahoma State, they will secure the No. 2 seed for the Big 12 Tournament.
“24-hour rule, whether you win or you lose you can’t dwell on it for too long. (Today) we start getting ready for TCU. It is getting to crunch time. We have to get that game and move on,” McBride said.
“We can’t let one loss turn into three,” Huggins said. “We can still finish second in the league. But we have to take care of our business. We have to concentrate on TCU and then after that we have to concentrate on Oklahoma State, who is playing extremely, extremely well.”