LAWRENCE, Kan. — West Virginia coach Darian DeVries walked into the interview room at Allen Fieldhouse on Tuesday wearing a shirt that read “No Excuses,” even though he would have had plenty of them had seventh-ranked Kansas completed a frantic second-half rally.
Instead, the Mountaineers took down the Jayhawks for the first time in 12 tries in the Phog.
No excuses necessary.
The game was decided when Javon Small made the second of two free throws with 1.8 seconds left, and the Jayhawks’ KJ Adams missed a contested shot at the other end at the buzzer, allowing West Virginia to escape with the 62-61 victory. But making it all the more impressive was the fact that second-leading scorer Tucker DeVries and third-leading scorer Amani Hansberry were out with injuries, and the Mountaineers had all sort of trouble just getting to the game.
Their flight on Monday afternoon had mechanical problems, forcing the charter company to bring in another plane. They were supposed to arrive in Kansas at about 5:30 p.m., but instead touched down in the early morning hours Tuesday.
Oh, then their hotel briefly lost power. So not much sleep was had for the Mountaineers ahead of their Big 12 opener.
“Travel day was tough,” DeVries acknowledged. “It was a tough travel day, but like I told the guys, injuries, flight delays — those are things that you can’t control. Figure it out. I thought the guys did a good job of that.”
Safe to say they won’t be staying up late to ring in the new year, though.
“We need to get some sleep tonight,” DeVries said.
It should be a restful one.
Kansas had not lost a conference opener since Jan. 8, 1991, and the Phog was energized despite the vast majority of students still on winter break. But it was the weary and jet-lagged Mountaineers, who skipped their shoot-around to get a little extra rest, who jumped to a big early lead, eventually pushing it to 18 points in the early minutes of the second half.
“That’s as miserable of an offensive team I’ve seen play in this building in 22 years. That was horrid,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said of his own team, which was the preseason No. 1 in the AP Top 25 but is now 9-3 for the first time since the 1991-92 season.
West Virginia was much better on offense, dishing out 18 assists on 26 made field goals, which helped to offset a 6-for-20 day at the 3-point arc. On defense, the Mountaineers were able to hound All-American center Hunter Dickinson, who finished with just 10 points on 4-for-10 shooting, and kept the Jayhawks from getting into an offensive flow.
And when Kansas did, ripping off a 15-2 second-half run to get back into the game, West Virginia kept finding an answer.
The Jayhawks had pulled within 50-48 when KJ Tenner hit a jumper and former Kansas guard Joseph Yesufu buried a 3. And they got within 59-58 with 36 seconds to go when Small got to the foul line and made both of the free throws.
The biggest answer came at the end: Zeke Mayo, who led Kansas with 27 points, converted a three-point play to tie the game at 61 with 16 seconds to go. Small got the ball at the other and and was fouled by Kansas freshman Flory Bidunga with 1.8 seconds left, and he followed up a miss on his first three-throw attempt by calmly swishing the second to regain the lead.
Adams may have been fouled on his shot at the buzzer, but the officials simply shook their heads as he pleaded his case.
“When you lose, we all have a tendency to (complain) about officiating,” Self said, “and when you win, sometimes you take it for granted that maybe you got a friendly whistle. The play at the end, it’s probably a foul early in the game, but I’m not sure there’s a lot of people who would call a foul on that last possession.”
The officials did admit to Self that they blew a back-court violation that gave West Virginia possession in the second half.
“The whole deal is there is 1 second left. You’re probably not going to get that call,” Self continued. “I’m not going to dwell on not getting that call. I’m going to dwell on us not playing as well as we could have played.”
West Virginia had a lot to do with that in the opening game of their 20-game Big 12 grind.
Now, the Mountaineers will ring in the new year — if they can stay awake — with a lot more joy than the Jayhawks.
“I doubt we’ll have people at 11:59 doing any countdowns tonight,” Self said. “We’ll bounce back but we’re down. The league is a monster and to win this league, you’re going to have to hold serve at home, and we didn’t accomplish that.”
