Rapid Takeaways From WVU's Embarrassing Loss to Kansas State

The path was set for West Virginia to get firmly back into the NCAA Tournament conversation, and right on cue, they stubbed their toe, falling to Kansas State, which has just two conference wins coming into tonight.

Here are a few of my thoughts from this one...

Careless cost them this game

Just like the first matchup against K-State, the Mountaineers turned the ball over at an alarming rate. Tonight, they threw it away 13 times, which led to 20 Wildcats points. The most maddening thing about several of the turnovers was that they were unforced. The two that stick out like a sore thumb were Jasper Floyd's intended pass to Honor Huff, who used a backdoor screen to get wide open in front of the bench. He would have had an easy look if they connected, and Brenen Lorient stepping over the line while inbounding the ball with no pressure on the ball.

3 vs. 5 offense

Tonight really exposed West Virginia's biggest issue offensively, aside from shotmaking. They're playing shorthanded on that end of the floor constantly. I've noticed this here and there, but it was very evident tonight. Harlan Obioha offers no threat to score it and constantly passes up decent looks at the rim to pass it to another guy in the post with poor positioning. When Amir Jenkins is on the floor, he's passing up shots left and right, repeatedly passing on open looks and dribbling into traffic. I get that the shot is not exactly where he wants it, but it's one of the reasons why the floor shrinks for WVU.

By far worst loss of the season

The Wildcats were 2-14 in Big 12 play coming into this one, on a three-game losing streak, had a crowd the size of a YMCA pickup game, and were without their best player, PJ Haggerty, who is the third-leading scorer in all of college basketball.

In our score prediction article this morning, I picked WVU but did state,

"This is one of those games that probably has Mountaineer fans feeling uneasy, and rightfully so. How many times over the years, regardless of the sport or head coach, has WVU had a path to do something, in this case, it's making the NCAA Tournament, and they stub their toe in an untimely manner? This has the makings of that type of game."

What do you know? It happened. Losing to Utah is bad enough, but this is a whole other level of embarrassing, especially when you consider what was on the line for West Virginia. And in similar fashion, they didn't start playing with great energy and focus until the final eight or so minutes.