West Virginia's 2nd Half Surge Buries Pesky Wildcats
No. 10 West Virginia defeated Kansas State 65-43 moving the Mountaineers to 17-6 (10-4) on the season.
Sophomore guard Miles "Deuce" McBride was not in the team's starting lineup as he has been dealing with a little bit of a lower-body injury. Jordan McCabe filled in for him but just a few minutes in, Huggins inserted McBride into the game to hopefully fuel the offensive with a spark. He knocked down a mid-range jumper right away but then missed his other two shot attempts in the half.
West Virginia held Kansas State scoreless for the first four minutes of the game until Antonion Gordon hit a jumper in the paint. A few minutes later, West Virginia went on a 9-2 run that included Sean McNeil's first made three of the game and a beautiful dunk by Emmitt Matthews Jr. Jordan McCabe drove to the middle of the lane, dished it off to Gabe Osabuohien who immediately found Matthews cutting to his left and handed it off to him for the dunk as Osabuohien sealed off his man to create a clear path to the bucket.
Although the Mountaineers led wire to wire in the first half, it was a fairly ugly half of basketball. Fortunately for West Virginia, K-State struggled on the offensive end as well. The two teams combined 20 first-half turnovers and shot just 30% from the field.
West Virginia took ahold of the game in the early minutes of the second half going on a 9-2 run with five of the points coming from redshirt freshman Jalen Bridges. Kansas State continued their offensive struggles, which turned into an 18-4 run of the Mountaineers to really create some separation.
Kansas State was never able to pull back within reach as they shot 8/26 from the field and 0/10 from three-point land.
The Mountaineers will be back in action on Tuesday as they will play host to No. 2 Baylor.
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