Mountaineers Now Postgame Show: Kansas State 94, WVU 90
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome in everybody.
00:11 It is the Mountaineers Now post game show
00:12 presented by Country Roads,
00:13 aired the cleaning take me home to comfort West Virginia.
00:17 Falls on the road once again,
00:19 remaining winless away from WVU Coliseum
00:22 as they fall to the Kansas State Wildcats,
00:24 94 to 90 in overtime.
00:27 And as always, we'll lead things off here
00:29 with a quick look here at the numbers.
00:32 And Kirk Creasa, 25 points, eight for 20 from the field,
00:36 five of 12 from three point land.
00:38 He had six assists to go along with that.
00:40 Rayquan Battle was pretty exceptional in this one.
00:43 10 of 20 from the floor, six of nine from three.
00:46 He finishes with 28 on the bench.
00:49 Pat Sumnick added 10 points for Kansas State.
00:53 It was the Tyler Perry show, literally.
00:55 29 points, six assists, four rebounds.
00:59 Arthur Columa also had 13 and five,
01:01 and Cam Carter, 19 and eight.
01:04 As far as the team stats go,
01:06 West Virginia did a much better job
01:08 of taking care of the basketball in this game.
01:10 They had just six turnovers compared to the 23
01:14 that they had on the road on Saturday against Iowa State.
01:17 Meanwhile, Kansas State turned it over 16 times.
01:21 And that was really the biggest difference in this game.
01:23 That's really what allowed West Virginia
01:25 to hang around in this one, to claw their way back into it.
01:29 They were down by as many as 25 points,
01:32 and it didn't look like there was any chance
01:34 of a comeback at all.
01:35 It looked like it was going to be one of those games,
01:37 maybe from earlier in the year
01:39 when West Virginia played at Texas,
01:41 and it was just a crap show from the very beginning.
01:44 And they were just getting manhandled in the paint.
01:47 They were not getting stops.
01:49 They couldn't find any success on the offensive end.
01:52 It felt like it was trending toward that.
01:55 And when you come off a loss like they did two days ago,
01:58 where they battled really hard in a tough environment
02:03 at Hilton for 30 minutes,
02:05 and then things just fell apart in the final 10,
02:07 you got to wonder if there was going to be
02:09 some sort of carryover effect.
02:10 And it seemed like that was going to be the case.
02:14 Kansas State is one of the worst teams in the Big 12.
02:17 Actually, I believe they're the number one,
02:19 or, well, 14th in terms of turnovers.
02:22 They throw it away more than any team in the conference,
02:25 including West Virginia, who's 13th.
02:28 So that was the big difference in this one,
02:30 is they continued to turn the ball over.
02:31 I think they had four or five straight possessions
02:34 without a shot.
02:35 They turned it over, turned it over,
02:36 turned it over, and turned it over.
02:38 West Virginia continued to make shots.
02:39 Kirk Creaser, Raekwon Battle, did a good enough job
02:43 to keep things going and claw their way all the way back
02:46 in a 31-9 run to end the regulation.
02:52 I don't know if I've ever seen that.
02:54 Had West Virginia been able to come away with this win,
02:58 it would have been the biggest comeback win
03:00 in Big 12 conference history,
03:03 at least dating back to 2010, 2011.
03:07 So that's a little disappointing.
03:09 Again, it was a tough road trip.
03:11 Iowa State, Kansas State, Iowa State playing
03:14 for big, big things, Big 12 conference title,
03:18 a number one seed, potentially,
03:19 Kansas State's battling for their life
03:21 to get into the NCAA tournament.
03:23 And for this team to play exceptionally well,
03:28 except for just the endings of these two games.
03:32 The Iowa State game, it was just things fell apart.
03:34 They turned the ball over way too much,
03:37 and just everything went wrong.
03:40 This game, I think it was just more of, well,
03:42 number one, Jesse Edwards was really not a factor at all.
03:45 And when he got removed from the game with his fifth foul,
03:49 that obviously changed their approach.
03:52 They were out of energy.
03:54 We already know this is a very short bench as it is.
03:58 And Kansas State was due.
04:00 I mean, they gave up a 31 to nine run, like I said,
04:03 to end the regulation.
04:05 They were due to turn things around.
04:07 But look, I mean, it's hard to really nitpick in this one.
04:12 I mean, defensively, you can go back to the first half,
04:14 and there was a lot of lapses.
04:17 There was a lot of selfish play on the offensive end,
04:20 too many bad decisions, too many forced shots,
04:23 too many contested looks, instead of moving the ball,
04:27 which is what happened in the second half.
04:29 They were moving the ball, and it led to 53 points.
04:33 Wouldn't you be, isn't that surprising?
04:35 You move the ball, and it doesn't stick,
04:37 and all of a sudden it goes in the net.
04:39 It's pretty simple.
04:40 This game can be that easy at times.
04:42 But it's tough.
04:46 This team's now nine and 19 on the year.
04:49 They're well on their way to a 14th place finish
04:52 in the Big 12.
04:53 They come home back on Saturday.
04:57 And you need a better effort from Jesse Edwards.
04:59 I mean, that's obvious.
05:01 5.7 rebounds.
05:03 I think he was held scoreless in the first half,
05:05 maybe had one rebound, one of nine from the floor.
05:09 Quince Leszczynski was not very efficient,
05:11 one of eight, 0 for four from three.
05:13 So those two guys in particular need to have better games.
05:18 And I get you're not going to have all five
05:20 on the same, of your starters,
05:22 contributing at a high level on the same night.
05:24 But particularly with Jesse Edwards, he's got to be better.
05:28 That was really the biggest difference
05:30 in the first game between these two,
05:31 was Kansas State just absolutely killed
05:34 West Virginia inside.
05:35 And I figured that with Jesse Edwards being back,
05:38 that would change some things.
05:39 That would make them a little bit more competitive
05:41 on the glass and in the paint.
05:43 And that was not really the case.
05:45 They had to really rely on Kirk Creason and Roy Quambell.
05:47 So not much else to really say about this one.
05:52 Great effort after the disastrous start.
05:56 You got to at least tip your hat to Josh Eiler
06:00 and his team for that, not giving in, just saying,
06:03 "Oh, it's another loss."
06:05 Down 25.
06:06 They shared a lot of grit,
06:09 but couldn't get it all the way through to the finish line.
06:13 And now they'll have the next few days off here,
06:16 or actually the rest of the week off,
06:18 until they play back home on Saturday against Texas Tech,
06:23 who is also in the mix for big things this year
06:28 in terms of their seating in the Big 12
06:30 and so on and so forth.
06:31 So again, West Virginia falls to Kansas State
06:34 in overtime, 94 to 90.
06:37 We'll be back in action Saturday at 6 p.m.,
06:39 that one tipping off on ESPN2
06:42 against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
06:44 I'm Skylar Callan.
06:45 This has been the Mountaineers Now post-game show
06:47 presented by Country Roads Air Duct Cleaning.
06:49 Take me home to comfort.
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06:57 We'll see you back here tomorrow morning
06:59 for an episode of Between the Ears.
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