WVU basketball: Mountaineers fall in title to Kansas
Another one bites the dust for the WVU basketball team. West Virginia is now unfortunately 0-3 in Big 12 Championship games.
The Mountaineers fell to Kansas, 71-60, on Saturday in Kansas City. It was hard to stop the Jayhawks when they were making almost every shot they attempted.
As tight as the WVU basketball team played, Kansas was too hard to cool off. The Mountaineers and Jayhawks each had strong runs, but the Jayhawks got the last run and basically ran away with it.
For the Mountaineers, Daxter Miles played one of the best games of his career and scored 25 points. Fellow senior Jevon Carter added 17 points and Sagaba Konate scored 18.
For the Jayhawks, Malik Newman scored 20 points and Devonte Graham had 18. Two Kansas players scored 16 points with Svi Mykhailiuk and Silvio De Sousa each reaching that mark.
In the second half, Kansas shot 69 percent from behind-the-arc and higher than 50 percent for the game. West Virginia couldn’t keep up with that mark but still shot 40 percent for the game. Miles was 5 of 12 on 3-pointers and Carter was 3 of 7.
Konate was full of highlights in the first half with three blocks. He finished with five of the team’s 37 rebounds. Kansas had just 27 rebounds with De Sousa grabbing 10. The Jayhawks had more steals than the Mountaineers, 10-7, and actually went to the foul line two times less than the WVU basketball team.
The championship win was the Jayhawks’ 11th Big 12 title. The win probably locked up a No. 1 seed for them in the NCAA Tournament. The WVU basketball team will await its tournament fate with Selection Sunday looming. The Mountaineers will likely grab a No. 4 seed.
Not much would have changed had West Virginia claimed the conference champion. It wasn’t going to get a No. 1 seed, but it still would have been nice to come home to Morgantown with a trophy in tow.
Next: All-time WVU basketball team
There’s always next year for that to happen, but there’s still time this year to get that trophy. The Mountaineers have so much left to play for and it starts this week.