West Virginia holds off Kansas State 87-83 in double overtime (+video)

Just being close, it turns out, isn’t going to be good enough.

Such as how close Kansas State came to pulling off an upset of No. 19 West Virginia, for example, in Saturday’s 87-83, double-overtime loss to open Big 12 play.

“We compete with Top 25 teams, but we’ve gotta find a way to beat one of them,” K-State coach Bruce Weber said. “It’s gotta move forward at some point.”

A case could be made that K-State (10-3), with almost an entirely new roster, is moving forward, and the loss to the Mountaineers should be evidence.

But that was no consolation for the Wildcats after dropping a game that swung on a handful of plays.

“The league is tough, and you’re going to have games like that go right to the end,” said K-State junior guard Wesley Iwundu. “Today was that type of game, that type of environment, and we fought but we didn’t step up in the end and finish.”

K-State took a 34-33 halftime lead on back-to-back baskets by Iwundu and Carlbe Ervin in the final two minutes. The Wildcats were 7 of 17 at the free-throw line — they finished 28 of 43 — and got nine combined points from leading scorers Iwundu, Justin Edwards and Dean Wade.

West Virginia (12-1) adapted well in the second half. Coach Bob Huggins abandoned a man defense in favor of a 1-3-1 zone that produced better results and went to a ballscreen offense that opened up lanes to the rim for reserve Jaysean Paige, who finished with a game-high 25 points.

“I saw a matchup I thought we could exploit,” said Huggins, who coached K-State in 2006-07. “And Jaysean is our best guy at getting the ball to the rim. They were driving everything to the rim and we did an absolutely horrible job of trying to stay in front of them, so I thought with the zone we could make them take more perimeter shots.”

The Wildcats had answers. Freshman guard Barry Brown had a game-high 20 points and Iwundu’s second half was 16 points and seven rebounds after a four-point, no-rebound first half.

“(West Virginia) goes to the glass so well and so aggressively,” Weber said. “We needed our guards to come in and help rebound, which I thought they did a better job of in the second half.”

K-State’s D.J. Johnson tied the game at 69-69 on two free throws with 21.1 seconds left in regulation, but Iwundu’s runner at the top of the key bounced off the rim at the buzzer to send the game to overtime.

A basket by Brown with 1:31 left in overtime tied the game at 75-75, and after a shot-clock violation call on West Virginia was reversed, Jevon Carter missed a jumper with three seconds left to force another overtime.

Tarik Phillip hit a floater in the lane to give West Virginia an 85-83 with 1:08 left in double overtime, then Iwundu lost the ball out of bounds on a drive to the lane with 4.5 seconds left. Carter made two free throws to seal the win for the Mountaineers.

In a game where the referees seemed to be playing catch-up from the start — Johnson had a shot blocked out of bounds in the first half that was given back to West Virginia and Iwundu had a shot that seemed like an obvious goaltending go as a no-call at the end of the first half — Weber only took serious exception to the final play for K-State.

“The play at the end, I don’t think there was a foul on the shot, but the guy had his arm on (Iwundu) when he was driving to the hoop,” Weber said. “You just called a bunch of hand checks on the other end, so call them on this end, too. It’s hard to ref, and I think they did a decent job. I thought they missed some calls, but it’s not like I coached a perfect game, either.”

Freshman Kamau Stokes added 15 points for K-State, and Wade finished with 13 points, all in the second half.

This story was originally published January 2, 2016 at 3:12 PM with the headline "West Virginia holds off Kansas State 87-83 in double overtime (+video)."