The No. 20 West Virginia Mountaineers made the long trek to the Rockies on Wednesday to square off against the Colorado Buffaloes in Big 12 action, and things could have easily turned into a trap game for the Mountaineers.
WVU stepped into a difficult atmosphere (quite literally, given the elevation in Boulder) against a team on their homecourt that had one four of their last five games, and the Mountaineers were feeling the intoxicating effects of securing a major upset win over a Top 15 opponent after a win against Baylor.
But in the end, the Mountaineers didn't fall into that potential trap. While Colorado did outscore the Mountaineers by two points in the second quarter and there were multiple lead changes in the first half, the Mountaineers took the lead into the halftime break and never relinquished afterward, though the Buffs narrowed the game to one possession multiple times late.
"I'm proud of our group, for several reasons really," West Virginia head coach Mark Kellogg said after the win.
"We knew where we were coming, we knew the opponent and what it meant, and that it was going to be a big game for us. We've been pretty good on the road and and we just needed to continue that. We were coming off a big win against Baylor and we wanted to follow that up and not just let that be one where we just kind of settle and don;t have the right focus coming off of that one."
Late in the stretch of the game, Kellogg found himself particularly impressed with his team's effort on the defensive end of the floor as they held Colorado to just five points and one made field goal in the final 4:45 seconds of the fourth quarter.
On the flip side, the Mountaineers went 4-of-7 from the field during the same stretch, outscoring the Buffaloes 11-5 during the final minutes of action.
"We just found a way. There were some big buckets late and some grittiness on the defensive end. It's a good win for us for sure," Kellogg said.