Kansas storms back from down 14 to tighten its grip on Big 12 race
With their team trailing West Virginia by 14 and less than three minutes remaining, many Kansas fans packed up their belongings and headed for the exits.
Only minutes later, those same fans were scurrying back to their seats while the Jayhawks mounted an unfathomable comeback.
Third-ranked Kansas emerged with an 84-80 overtime victory that nobody could have seen coming 37 minutes into the game. The Jayhawks outscored ninth-ranked West Virginia 21-7 to close regulation and then finished off the comeback with an 8-0 surge to start overtime.
Four turnovers and four missed free throws were two of the biggest culprits in the West Virginia collapse. The mistake-prone Mountaineers lost their composure when Kansas went to a full-court press out of desperation, an ironic outcome considering pressure defense is the trademark of Bob Huggins’ team.
Neither Frank Mason nor Devonte Graham were especially efficient throughout most of Monday’s game, but both were outstanding during the game-saving run. Graham sank a pair of 3-pointers and Mason had 11 of his game-high 24 points including two free throws to tie the score at 71 with 21 seconds to play.
Even after surrendering the lead, West Virginia still had one last chance to prevent Monday night’s game from being hailed as an all-time meltdown. The Mountaineers called timeout to set up a potential game-winning play for guard Tarik Phillip with the score tied and 16 seconds left in regulation.
Phillip caught the ball just behind the 3-point arc on the right wing and stared into the eyes of Kansas freshman Josh Jackson. Phillip jab-stepped … and waited. Then he jab-stepped again … and waited some more. Finally he hoisted up a fallaway 25 footer at the buzzer that didn’t come close to falling, the maraschino cherry on top of an astonishingly bad finishing stretch from West Virginia that will surely stick with the Mountaineers for a long while.
What will be lost amid all the talk of the comeback is the significance of this game to the Big 12 race.
Had West Virginia held onto its lead and closed out the victory, the Mountaineers would have pulled into a second-place tie with Baylor, just one game behind the 12-time reigning league champion Jayhawks. Kansas instead extended its cushion to two games over Baylor and three over West Virginia, meaning the Bears’ last stand comes Saturday in Waco and the Mountaineers are already all but eliminated from contention.
The big cushion will be a relief for Bill Self because his team has shown some unexpected vulnerability recently. Kansas suffered a rare home loss to Iowa State last week, narrowly survived Texas Tech in Lubbock on Saturday and then nearly suffered a second straight home loss Monday night for the first time in Self’s tenure.
Kansas beat West Virginia despite shooting only 34.4 percent from the field and committing 15 turnovers against the Mountaineers’ press. The Jayhawks made up for their poor shooting by hurting West Virginia on the offensive glass and getting to the foul line 44 times.
It all added up to a memorable night for more than 16,000 fans at Phog Allen Fieldhouse.
Even the ones who had to listen to overtime on their car radios.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
