Timmy Allen's 26 Squeaks Texas Past West Virginia 82-81

The Longhorns needed things to pay off in a big way with a win Saturday afternoon after making their longest trip of Big 12 play to Morgantown, WV.

And with 65-percent shooting in the first half and the resilience to overcome a 10-point deficit in the second, No. 20 Texas (21-8, 10-6 Big 12) pulled away in the final seconds for a 82-81 win over last-place West Virginia (14-15, 3-13) to stay alive in the race for first place in the conference.

"We set this game up like an NCAA tournament game — survive and advance," Texas coach Chris Beard said postgame. "That’s as happy as our locker room has been all year."

Texas forward Timmy Allen had a season-high 26 points and led all players with 10 rebounds. Marcus Carr had 15 points and Jase Febres came off the bench for Beard in a season-high 14-point effort with four makes from deep.

WVU guard Malik Curry came off the bench and was arguably the best player in this game, putting up a game and career-high 27 points for coach Bob Huggins.

West Virginia had 20 points off 16 Texas turnovers, but timely takeaways and tough shot-making from the Horns down the stretch proved the difference for a road victory.

Texas' Andrew Jones missed a backdoor layup on the game's first play, but it was not a sign of things to come for Texas in the first half.

Febres came off the bench to ignite a 10-0 run to give the Horns an 18-12 lead with 12:21 left after trailing early. The quick offense seemed to be gaining momentum, but things got chippy midway through the half after a hard foul by Texas forward Brock Cunningham led to jawing between the two teams.

Cunningham was assessed a flagrant two and was ejected. He put his horns up on the way to the locker room amidst a shower of boos from the WVU crowd.

Texas stayed scorching from the field though, going 5 of 6 from the field over the next few minutes behind 3's from Jones and Devin Askew.

West Virginia's spark came through Curry, who displayed impressive shooting on a handful of buckets.

At the half, Texas led 43-37 and was shooting a blazing 65 percent from the field and 71 percent from 3, but had seven turnovers and allowed WVU to get to the line 18 times in the first half (12 of 18).

Jones and Allen led the Horns with nine points apiece, while Curry easily paced the Mountaineers with 13 points off the bench.

Texas' second flagrant of the game came quickly into the start of the second half after Courtney Ramey hacked Gabe Osabuohien, though it was only called a flagrant one.

Three Texas turnovers in the first five minutes of the half helped West Virginia jump back to a 54-47 lead behind a 12-0 run.

Febres responded with a much-needed score for Texas on a high-arcing 3, making it a season-high 11 points at that point for the longtime Longhorn. But West Virginia had built its largest lead of 10 at 64-54 with 10 minutes remaining.

The Longhorns crawled all the way back despite tough WVU defense, as Febres drained his fourth 3 of the game to give Texas a 72-71 lead with a little over four minutes remaining.

From there, Allen and Carr took over. Allen had six-straight points down the stretch, while Carr made two tough shots in the final minutes. Beard inserted him back into the game late despite playing with four fouls for most of the second half.

Curry had one final opportunity to capitalize on his career day with a turnaround jumper for the win, but it rimmed out.

The Longhorns improve to 21-8 heading into the final game ever at the Erwin Center on Monday night against No. 10 Baylor.

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