West Virginia Tops Iowa St.
Mountaineers Win 76-71
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MORGANTOWN -- They billed what went on at the Coliseum as a basketball game but if you played in it, you know it was something more like a recreation of the Alamo.
It's been that way ever since the Big 12 Conference began league play, with every opponent Santa Anna and his men surrounding the Mountaineers, burying them one night after the next until they found themselves fighting not to win games but for their lives.
This was no different, a must-win game, believing right was on their side but having a really hard time proving it.
And this may have been the toughest of all, for Iowa State came with the No. 11 ranking and with the bigger guns, but the Mountaineers were playing for a cause and that cause was to make it to the NCAA Tournament.
When the smoke cleared, they had somehow prevailed, 76-71.
Survived probably was a better word, for this was a difficult game to play. It was more rugby than basketball, it was marred by an officiating crew of Roger Ayers, James Breeding and Byron Jarrett who blew the whistle for 59 fouls.
There were bodies everywhere. Players being brushed and whistled for a foul, players being hammered and not. Both sides, although the Cyclones took the worst of it with 30 personal fouls, three players fouling out … in the end WVU's difference coming at the free throw line with 26 of 31 made.
"You know the saying about how you've dug yourself a hole and now you have to climb out of it," coach Bob Huggins said, trying to explain the sense of urgency that not only allowed WVU to get through this one but to turn its season around with five wins in its last seven games and four of its last five.
"You get to where you are almost out of it but you know you can fall back in and you don't want to do that," Huggins went on. "That's a part of our competitiveness now. It's why we're playing so much harder than we played before."
You not only can see how much harder WVU is playing, you can feel it. Each bruise is felt in the highest seats in the Coliseum .
Where could you see it? Well, mostly in Erik Stevenson's performance, a player at his fourth school who never has played in the tournament. It is almost a psychotic drive with him and while he didn't have a big scoring game, accounting for just eight points after scoring 34 in his last game, he lit the team up.
First there was a moment under the basket on a drive when he was fouled and went down so hard that he had to be carted off the floor by teammates, his legs rubbery, his eyes seeming spinning in their sockets.
But he came back, only later to sacrifice his body diving out of bounds, face first into the floor, getting up, coming back down the court, getting the ball back, driving toward the basket, only be nailed in the face by Robert Jones.
That sent him down for an eight count but for Jones it was foul No. 4, a flagrant 1 technical, that allowed Stevenson to make two free throws. Shortly thereafter Jones fouled out.
It didn't matter which of the WVU players you wanted to talk about. All of them were bounced around or were bouncing Iowa State players around.
Fouls fell like raindrops, which led Emmitt Matthews to say about complaining over the officiating, "It's like complaining about the weather, everyone talks about it but you can't do anything about it. You try to be nice to the ref, talk to them and ask how they're doing today."
And you play, as both sides did in a tense game that went all the way to the wire.
Now the headlines are reserved for Keedy Johnson, who had 22 points and six assists, and for Matthews, who emerged with his best game since returning to WVU after playing a year back home at Washington as he scored 20 points and grabbed five rebounds.
It was just Matthews second 20-point game as a Mountaineer and you had to go back to his freshman year when he scored 28 against Texas Tech in the Big 12 Tournament of 2019.
But, in the end, it was Joe Toussaint who saved the day.
With nine seconds left and WVU down led 72-71 Keedy Johnson tried to make too big a play, driving and trying to thread the ball to James Okonkwo, but the ball was tipped and all of a sudden Caleb Grill had the ball going the other way.
He had a shot at a layup but Toussaint somehow bothered him. Was it a foul? On a night when everything else was called a foul, this one wasn't.
Toussaint came away with the ball and Iowa State fouled him and he made two free throws to make it 73-71.
Now Iowa State had to rush the ball down the court, which they did with Jaren Holmes rushing down the court, only to have Toussaint work a charge out of his run for glory.
Toussaint canned the two free throws again and it was over.
It doesn't get any easier. WVU's next two games are a Texas road trip where they go to face No. 5 Texas and No. 14 Baylor.