Down two stars UConn men’s basketball loses a close game at West Virginia, 56-53

Sometimes you live by the three and sometimes you die by three. On Wednesday night, the UConn men’s basketball team died by the three.

Down two stars in a hostile environment, UConn lost a heartbreaker 56-53 to West Virginia in a Big East-Big 12 Battle game on Wednesday at West Virginia Coliseum. The Huskies shot a horrific 3-for-21 (14.3%) from three.

“I’d say out of the 18 (threes) that we missed, I’d probably say eight ,nine, or 10 of those were pretty good looks,” said UConn coach Dan Hurley. “We make a couple of them, we walk out with the win.”

Taz Sherman led West Virginia in scoring with 23 points, including 3-for-6 from three.

Isaiah Whaley lead all UConn scorers with 15 points on 7-for-10 shooting from the field.’

The Huskies came into the game missing two of their three leading rebounders in sophomore forward Adama Sanogo and senior guard Tyrese Martin. Martin (wrist) and Sanogo (abdominal strain) are out multiple weeks with injuries. Both are among the top five on the team in points, rebounds and blocks.

Against a raucous West Virginia crowd, their absence was sorely missed at pivotal moments. UConn struggled to find the right shot multiple times, leading to multiple shot clock violations. UConn’s season scoring leader R.J. Cole struggled without their presence on offense, finishing with 14 points on just 6-for-17 shooting. The Huskies had 16 turnovers, struggling against the famous West Virginia press at times.

Still, Hurley wasn’t all doom and gloom about his team.

“I thought we fought hard, we obviously couldn’t score enough,” he said.

Cole felt this was a great learning experience for the team.

“It was a good atmosphere,” he said. “A lot of guys are playing their first away game and they tested us of course, we just didn’t come out with enough to win.”

Over the first 10:11 Andre Jackson and Whaley combined for all 15 of UConn’s points. Jalen Gaffney broke the streak with a breakout fast break dunk that put UConn up, 17-16. The crowd’s hostile atmosphere seemed to play a role in affecting shots, as UConn had multiple air balls in the first half. Despite its poor shooting from behind the arc, UConn still shot 12-for-27 (44.4%) from the field. Whaley led UConn with nine points on 4-for-7 shooting.

The Mountaineers were hot from three as they shot 5-for-10 in the first half. West Virginia came into the game making 6.9 3s a game. Sherman and Sean McNeil had 13 points apiece for the Mountaineers, who went into the half with a 32-29 lead.

Discombobulated was the word to describe the Huskies second-half start. At 15:57, Cole had his pass stolen and it seemed like an easy layup for West Virginia’s Pauly Paulicap until Akok Akok made a chase-down block that had many in the West Virginia crowd bemoaning for a foul call. From there, Jackson ran down the court and passed to Jordan Hawkins only for him to lose the ball, his third turnover up to that point.

Down 33-38, Cole brought the Huskies right back with back-to-back three-pointers. Those 3s were just the second and third of the night for the Huskies, to put the UConn up, 39-38.

With 3:20 to go and the scored tied at 51-51, Tyler Polley lost the ball that led to a jump ball call that gave the Mountaineers possession. Paulicap drove to the hoop and went to the free-throw line making one of them. Then, West Virginia played lock-down defense that led to a shot clock violation.

After a missed dunk by West Virginia at 1:25, UConn collected the rebound and coach Dan Hurley called time out. After multiple missed attempts off offensive rebounds by the Huskies, West Virginia got the ball finally and knocked down some pivotal free throws.

With 17 seconds to go, UConn made a pivotal mistake and allowed the Mountaineers to collect a pivotal offensive rebound on a free-throw that led to more chances at line after a foul by Cole. West Virginia’s Sean McNiel sank both putting them up 55-51. That was essentially the final nail in the coffin for UConn.

“I just think we made wrong timely decisions in the last few minutes and the biggest one for us was probably the free-throw box-out,” said Cole. “I mean we made mistakes the whole game, we just got to continue getting better.”

For much of the UConn team, this was the first real road game against tough opponent and at times nerves seemed to get the best of them. Hawkins, fresh off one his best games against Grambling State, struggled with West Virginia’s defensive pressure. He had zero points on 0-for-7 shooting with three turnovers.

“We’re trying to keep Jordan’s head up, he’s really disappointed,” said Jackson. “He did really good, he’s a freshman still learning. He’s really down on himself though, but we are keeping him up.”

UConn’s road trip continues Saturday with a game against St. Bonaventure at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

Shreyas Laddha can be reached at sladdha@courant.com.