While West Virginia continues to come close, the Mountaineers have yet to prove they can win away from home or against top-tier competition.
The latest missed opportunity came Saturday night at Rocket Arena as WVU squandered a 16-point second-half lead and suffered an 89-88 double overtime loss to Ohio State in Cleveland.
With WVU ahead by one late in the second extra session, Bruce Thornton scored in the paint with 3.6 seconds remaining to put the Buckeyes (8-2) on top, and the Mountaineers (8-4) turned it over on an ensuing inbound pass thrown near half court.
“At the end of the game, from a coaching standpoint, I’ll take the blame on that one,” WVU first-year head coach Ross Hodge said on postgame radio. “Should’ve gotten the ball out of Thornton’s hands. He’s too great of a player. We had a hard time. I’ll take the blame on that.
“Some of the thinking is knowing that if you run at him, you’re going to be leaving somebody else wide open and you open up a can of worms. But he had woken up and willed them to victory. We should’ve done something else. For that, disappointed in myself. We had opportunities to really put it away and didn’t take advantage of it. Disappointing.”
BRUCE THORNTON GAME-WINNER FOR THE BUCKEYES IN 2OT 🤯
Ohio State trailed by as many as 14 😳 pic.twitter.com/jaDHnGd4Rp
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 14, 2025
West Virginia momentarily gained the lead on its previous possession on a corner jumper from Honor Huff that was within inches of being a three-pointer.
The entirety of the second OT was played within two points, and Ohio State’s first lead in it came when Thornton scored to break an 83-all tie.
Brenen Lorient countered with a top of the key triple, before Amare Bynum made two free throws to leave the Buckeyes with an 87-86 advantage prior to Huff’s challenged basket.
Huff’s triple in the final minute of the first overtime turned a two-point deficit into a 77-76 lead, and the Mountaineers got the ball back with a chance to increase its, but Huff was ruled out of bounds as he drove along the baseline. OSU then got even on one free throw from Devin Royal, before Huff’s driving attempt at the win was well off the mark, sending the game to a second overtime knotted at 77.
Lorient and point guard Jasper Floyd combined to make all seven of their field-goal attempts and score 20 of the team’s 37 points in the first half.
Not until Treysen Eaglestaff’s three more than 13 minutes into the matchup did a WVU player outside of Lorient and Floyd make a basket, and that was one of only two for the opening half — the other a Huff three from the corner just before time expired to give the Mountaineers a 10-point lead at the break.
WVU led 51-35 at one point for the largest advantage for either team, but Bynum sparked a Buckeyes’ rally and threw down a dunk that pulled his team to within 55-50.
The Mountaineers led by seven with inside 7 minutes left after Chance Moore threw down a two-handed dunk, and it was a five-point advantage following Huff’s three with less than 3 minutes to play.
“Our togetherness was really good,” Hodge said. “We stayed the course even when they made their run in the second half. We had some opportunities to pull away and couldn’t get the stops necessary, and then when we got the stops, couldn’t get the rebounds. Some of that is you get collapsed. We didn’t do a great job with some of our ball screen coverages and they’re shooting at the rim, you’re having to help and they’re kind of shooting it to the other side of the basket and going and getting it.”
But OSU countered with the next seven points, including a challenged triple off the wing from John Mobley Jr. for a 68-66 advantage — the Buckeyes’ first lead since 17-14.
Huff found Jackson Fields for a tying bucket from close range, and the Mountaineers had an opportunity to win it in the finals seconds following a defensive stop, but Floyd was whistled for an offensive foul as he made a move to the basket.
Thornton then narrowly missed a shot from just inside half court as time expired in regulation.
Huff led all players with 24 points and made five triples. He has 28 threes in his last five games with at least five in every contest.
Lorient scored 18 and shot 7 for 7. Floyd and Moore added 14 apiece, though Moore shot 2 for 10.
The Mountaineers made 26-of-34 free throws but had 15 of the game’s 25 turnovers.
Thornton led OSU with 21 points. Mobley Jr. and Bynum added 17 apiece, while Christoph Tilly contributed 14 points with a game-high 11 rebounds. Royal also had a double-double of 11 points and 10 boards.
West Virginia made 12-of-26 attempts from long range, but only 13 of 37 shots inside the arc.
The Buckeyes were 28 for 52 on two-point field goals.
WVU fell to 0-4 away from home and 1-4 against power conference competition this season.
“You have to be able to execute down the stretch and make the simple play,” Hodge said. “When you execute it and at least got what you want, we had a pretty high success rate. We have to learn from it. It’s painful. It’s disappointing. We had a couple great opportunities to get quality wins in the non-league, but the bright side is you play in one of the best leagues in the country and there are going to be a lot of opportunities going forward.”