Can West Virginia Get Their First Ever Win At The Phog?

Sean Taylor   |  

Feb 16, 2018

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Talk about an epic collapse. West Virginia surrendered a 14 point lead with less than three minutes to go and blew their chance for their first ever win at the Phog.

The Mountaineers took a 64-50 lead with 2:58 to go and looked to have this game locked up. That’s when some Allen Fieldhouse magic happened. Many would debate it would be better described as an Allen Fieldhouse nightmare.

Press Virginia was victimized by a dose of their own medicine. Kansas forced turnovers and combining that with missed free throws by West Virginia they were able to make an incredible comeback. Devonte Graham hit a three-pointer which was followed up by a Tarik Phillip turnover and two Frank Mason III turnovers and the game was tied at 71 with 21.6 seconds to play.

Bob Huggins called a timeout with 16.1 seconds to go and set up a last play to win in regulation. A desperation three-point attempt from Phillip deep on the wing bricked as the buzzer sounded and the two teams were off to overtime.

At that point it was a foregone conclusion. Kansas scored the first eight points of overtime and ended up winning by a final score of 84-80.

Just a week before this epic comeback the Jayhawks had a 51-game winning streak at the Phog snapped. Still, a win there would have been an incredible feat and helped the Mountaineers get a much better seeding come March. West Virginia also blew a chance to become the first team in Bill Self’s run at Kansas to sweep a season series with the Jayhawks.

This year things are very different for Bill Self’s squad. The Jayhawks have lost three games at the Phog this season including a recent loss to Oklahoma State. This is a team that recently had a 51-game home winning streak snapped so obviously three home losses in a season is very rare.

West Virginia will be looking to score some revenge. Earlier this season Kansas came into Morgantown and scored another big-time comeback win over the Mountaineers. Kansas scored by 16 points in the first half. They were victimized by a Sagaba Konate block party for the agest. The crowd was rocking when West Virginia headed into the half with a 41-28 lead. This snapped a four-game losing streak for Kansas at the Coliseum.

The rematch is Saturday at 6:00 p.m. EST. West Virginia comes in 19-7 overall and 8-5 in the Big 12 and ranked No. 20 in the country. Kansas is 20-6 overall and 9-4 in the conference while ranked No. 13. Kansas is trailing Texas Tech by a game for the conference and with a trip to Lubbock still on the slate, a loss would put their streak of 14 straight regular season titles in serious jeopardy.

It will be West Virginia’s second game this season featuring ESPN’s College GameDay.

Let’s go Mountaineers!