Observations: West Virginia basketball vs. Oklahoma State
It was a disappointing end to the regular season at West Virginia fell at home to Oklahoma State 85-80, losing an opportunity to clinch the No. 2 seed in the Big 12 Tournament in the process.
The Mountaineers 18-8, 11-6, struggled on the defensive end and let a second half lead get away in the loss to the Cowboys. Managing Editor Keenan Cummings provides his thoughts and observations from the seed altering defeat.
--West Virginia hasn’t had what I’d refer to as a “bad loss,” all season. Even the only quadrant two loss on the season was against Oklahoma, who was ranked in the top ten nationally at the time before hitting a slide. I can’t say that anymore. This was an awful loss to a team that was without it’s two best players with so much on the line. Oklahoma didn't have Cade Cunningham and Isaac Likekele and the Mountaineers just didn’t show up. Forget finishing in second place, that is now gone. Forget No. 900 for Bob Huggins, too. This was a game where West Virginia could have sealed up a lot including pushing itself to the No. 2 line in the NCAA Tournament and now the program will have to matchup with either Oklahoma State, Texas or Texas Tech depending on the results of the games tomorrow in the first round. And that will be an Oklahoma State team that has it’s two best players for that contest if it is the 4/5 game with the winner getting none other than Baylor in the second round. This was just a really poor effort against a young team that West Virginia should have been able to take care of at home. You can get by beating TCU with a lackadaisical effort, but you’re not going to beat good teams. It’s a seed changing loss.
--Oklahoma State basically held a layup line in this one scoring 50 points in the paint and making 24-34 layup/dunk attempts in the game. The Mountaineers just couldn’t stop penetration at all, and it was one of the worst efforts of the season on the defensive end of the floor. The Mountaineers simply couldn’t stop straight line drives or stay in front of the ball at all. It’s really hard to win basketball games when you can’t get stops and that was clearly the case in this one.
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