WVU basketball: Stevie and company slump at wrong time

Mohamed Wague added a stick-back of an errant heat-check Stevenson trey on the next possession, giving the Mountaineers their largest lead, eight – a margin they continued to hold until eight minutes and change remained.

But Texas Tech came back, and West Virginia needed more from Stevenson.

But he missed each of four jumpers with the opportunity to either tie or take the lead in the final 2:49 of a 78-72 loss to the Red Raiders at the WVU Coliseum.

Asked in the postgame press conference about his shots down the stretch, Stevenson let show the frustration of a come-from-ahead loss the Mountaineers could scarcely afford.

“I definitely got good looks. They just didn’t go in,” Stevenson said. “That’s not what lost us the game, though.”

Invited to expand on that answer, Stevenson obliged.

“We gave up 78 points to arguably the worst team in the league,” he said. “We let guys score who don’t score those numbers, ever. No energy, that’s what it was. We didn’t come out wanting to win.”

Given how integral Stevenson’s contributions were to putting the Mountaineers in good position, a little defensiveness on the dais was perhaps understandable. But he didn’t get a pass from Bob Huggins, who took the hot seat after Stevenson.

Informed of Stevenson’s take on the team’s lack of energy, West Virginia’s coach glanced at the stat sheet and surmised, “It’s OK for him to go 9 for 21, though?”

Huggins, too, was frustrated. West Virginia had been outrebounded 39-28, including a series of Red Raiders offensive boards off free throws. Huggins didn’t like Emmitt Matthews Jr.’s unforced turnover on an unguarded inbounds pass, either, enough so that he burned a timeout just 30 seconds shy of a scheduled broadcast media clock stoppage and subbed Matthews out.

“We had a fifth-year guy throw the ball out of bounds,” Huggins said. “Can you explain that? I can’t. I don’t have any idea of how to explain that.

“Why would we do that? Why would that happen? Why would you just take it and throw it? I don’t know.”

What West Virginia does know now is the road to an NCAA Tournament at-large bid is narrow and steep, and that the Big 12 slate only complicates that problem.

It continues Monday at the WVU Coliseum against Oklahoma State.

“We gotta steal one on the road, for sure,” Stevenson said. “Obviously, we’ve gotta handle our business Monday. Gotta take care of business at home, like we should have today. It’d be nice to steal one, maybe two on the road, and I think today makes us have to win one in Kansas City (in the Big 12 Tournament) at least, possibly two. Obviously we want to win as many games as we can just to not even be on the bubble, make sure we’re in the tournament, but just gotta take it day by day, man.

“This one sucks. Let’s be honest.”