Darian DeVries knew his West Virginia basketball team had to keep their composure.
On the road at Kansas is never an easy task and even up 18 points two minutes into the second half, DeVries knew that a run was coming. Predictably it did.
“That 4-0 run can turn into 10-12 in a hurry,” DeVries said.
It was essentially two games within one as the Mountaineers were in control for the first 30 minutes leading by double digits but Kansas then was able to clamp down defensively and force West Virginia out of the paint while showing the ability to score the ball there.
The Jayhawks trimmed the lead down to 50-48 with 6:18 left to play largely on the back of a two-big strategy which caused issues for the Mountaineers on both ends of the floor.
Kansas played Hunter Dickinson with Flory Bidunga and was able to get the ball in the paint on the offensive end, while limiting the opportunities for West Virginia to do so on the opposite end.
“We weren’t able to do our ball screen defense kind of how we planned it. They were ducking (Bidunga) in a lot more against our undersized wing forwards and on the other end they were kind of cross-matching some things so they could protect the paint a little bit so a lot of those roll opportunities we got in the first 25 minutes became non-existent,” DeVries said.
But much like they’ve shown through the year, West Virginia maintained their composure. After the Jayhawks trimmed that lead to just two points, the Mountaineers responded with a floater by KJ Tenner, a stop on the defensive end and then a big three-ball by Joe Yesufu to push the edge back out to 7.
“The thing we kept stressing is to stay composed,” DeVries said.
Kansas would once again make another run to even tie the game at 61-all with just 15 seconds left on an and one by Zeke Mayo. The guard was able to score 18 points in the second half and cause plenty of problems for the Mountaineers with his ability to get into the paint and to the foul line.
West Virginia again responded as without any timeouts Javon Small was able to take advantage of a mismatch in space against Bidunga and get him in the air and draw a foul. He would connect on one of two of those attempts and after a final stop with 1.8 seconds left, the Mountaineers would walk out of Allen Fieldhouse with their first win in the building in program history.
It was a hard-earned win with West Virginia making the plays necessary on both ends to close it out. It wasn’t always pretty, but it got the job done and the Mountaineers showed they were up to the challenge in a place that’s been historically very difficult to win.
“I thought our guys did a good job of staying composed,” DeVries said.
And maintaining that must be the challenge moving forward.
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