WVU basketball: Texas Tech sneaks a victory against Mountaineers

The WVU basketball team suffered its first Big 12 Conference loss on Saturday. Texas Tech upended the Mountaineers by just one point.

The Red Raiders beat the WVU basketball team, 72-71. West Virginia led by as many as 11 points, but a poor offensive output in the second half allowed Texas Tech to pull out this win.

West Virginia had a huge scoring drought that needs to be addressed before the Mountaineers take the court against Kansas on Monday. Still, the WVU basketball team played a less-than-mediocre game while the Red Raiders played their best game of the year. And, the home team only won by one point.

It’s always said that games are won and lost at the foul line and that was definitely the case here. Texas Tech shot a wonderful 24 of 28 from the line. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers only had 19 free throw attempts. They went 14 of 19 from the line.

Leading the WVU basketball team was Jevon Carter, who found his shooting stroke again with a game-high 28 points. Asa Ahmad, in his first game back with West Virginia since sitting out for a lengthy suspension, scored 18 points coming off the bench. No other player reached double figures for the Mountaineers, but Wesley Harris added eight points.

Teddy Allen sat the bench for most of the second half, which drew the ire of most fans on social media. According to Blue Gold News, head coach Bob Huggins said Allen was on the bench because of an attitude problem. Huggins usually knows how to properly send a message to his players to get with the program. He did that with Sagaba Konate in an early season game, but the Mountaineers still won. Allen should have seen more action in this game, especially with the Mountaineers performing so poorly on offense.

For Texas Tech, Keenan Evans led the way with 20 points and Brandone Franics added 17 points. The Mountaineers had a 31-27 rebounding advantage. Konate had 11 boards.

Next: All-time WVU basketball team

West Virginia can’t sulk for too long as the Kansas Jayhawks are next up on Monday evening. A loss in conference play was going to happen at some point. West Virginia is still the best team in the Big 12. It will just have to prove it against a legendary program in Kansas.