WVU basketball: Mountaineers win battle of Big 12 heavyweights

The WVU basketball team earned a hard-fought home win against Oklahoma on Saturday night.

The Mountaineers and Sooners went back-and-forth for the first half but the home team pulled away in the second half. The WVU basketball team finished off with an 89-76 win. The much-anticipated game lived up to its billing and the Mountaineers proved they are the best team in the Big 12.

The hype of this contest was led by Oklahoma freshman Trae Young. He, too, lived up to his billing but the swarming defense of the Mountaineers did an excellent job containing him. Young turned the ball over eight times and was forced to take some bad shots. He still scored 29 points, but that’s because no other player seemed to want to take shots most of the time.

While the WVU defense was great, the offense played extremely well. Teddy Allen came off the bench to score 20 points as a follow up to recording 22 in the win against Kansas State. Jevon Carter and Lamont West both scored 17 points and Sagaba Konate added 16. Carter sat on the bench for about 12 minutes in the second half because he was in foul trouble. The rest of the Mountaineers played disciplined in his place.

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Konate may have had his most impressive performance of the season in getting a double double. He grabbed 13 of the WVU basketball team’s 38 rebounds. West Virginia shot just under 30 percent from the field as a team but still took advantage of the shots it had.

The WVU basketball team was also solid from the foul line going 18 of 21. There were nine ties and nine lead changes in the contest, most coming in the first half. Oklahoma led early but the Mountaineers remained gritty in the comeback and held the lead strong in the second half.

In front of a packed house at the WVU Coliseum and with a huge national viewing audience, hopefully the Mountaineers caught some people’s attention. They really mean business this year and it’s time to jump on the bandwagon. The WVU basketball team is now on a 14-game winning streak.

Next: WVU basketball records two milestones

The Mountaineers remain at home to take on Baylor on Tuesday. The Bears are 11-4 on the year and recently beat Texas by nine points.