Kansas State basketball no match for highly motivated West Virginia in 89-81 loss
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Kansas State knew full well how motivated the West Virginia Mountaineers would be Saturday in their final home game.
On Wednesday, it was the Wildcats who rode a similar wave of emotion to a blowout victory of Oklahoma in their senior day.
So when West Virginia, led by its six-man senior class, put on a show for the last 30 minutes of an 89-81 victory over No. 11 K-State in front of a sellout crowd at WVU Coliseum, all the Wildcats could do was tip their hats and move on.
"Credit to them guys for playing their last game at home pretty well," said K-State point guard Markquis Nowell, who scored 24 points with eight assists and six steals in the loss, but also committed six of the Wildcats' 20 turnovers. "But like coach (Jerome) Tang said, we're going to wash this one and we're going to focus on the conference (tournament) and the NCAA."
With the loss, K-State finished the regular season at 23-8 and 11-7 in the Big 12. They now move on to the Big 12 Tournament at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City as the No. 3 seed and will face No. 6 TCU in Thursday's 8:30 p.m. quarterfinal.
West Virginia (18-13, 7-11) is the No. 8 seed and will take on No. 9 Texas Tech in a first-round game at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
K-State led West Virginia by 10 points midway through the first half, but the Mountaineers rallied with a 15-3 run to go in front and were up, 39-37, at intermission. They then dominated the second period by shooting 57.7% and knocking down 16 of 18 free throws.
"I feel like they got to the free-throw line a little bit more, and I also felt like they got to the paint more than us," Nowell said. "They had 36 paint points, but I feel like they were the aggressor the whole night, and they just played an overall well game.
"They had three guys who scored 20 points, and that's not really likely to happen with West V."
Four of the Mountaineers' six seniors scored in double figures, led by Erik Stevenson with 27 points. Kedrian Johnson added 23 points, Emmitt Matthews 20 and Tre Mitchell 14.
"I want to give credit to West Virginia, and especially those seniors," K-State coach Tang said. "It's always tough on senior night because some guys try to do too much and some guys try not to do too much, and I thought we were able to jump on them early, but they settled down and played like seniors on senior night are supposed to play.
"We couldn't guard them, and they were really good."
It didn't help K-State that senior guard Desi Sills didn't make the trip. The Wildcats were unbeaten in the four games since Sills had stepped into the starting lineup.
"The last few games, five games or so, we'd gotten into a really good rotation of subbing, and things that we felt that we can be effective with on the offensive end, and this just changed everything," Tang said of missing Sills, who was attending a funeral, but will be back for the Big 12 Tournament. "And so it was a good learning experience, though.
"Some things happened out there that hadn't happened during the last five games, that are things that we can address and be ready and more prepared the next time."
In addition to Nowell, who scored all of his points in the second half with the help of six 3-pointers, K-State got 24 points and six rebounds from Keyontae Johnson and 13 from Cam Carter.
In assessing the loss, Tang turned to the most obvious culprit: turnovers.
"They turned us over 20 times, and so (they got) out in transition, and there's no defense for transition. Live ball turnovers, there's not any defense for that.
"And then in their home wins, they've made 23 free throws and tonight they made 22. There's no defense at the free-throw line. And then when Stevenson decides he's going to just rise up over the top of you and drill shots the way he was, then it just makes it hard."
But now it's on to the next chapter.
"I think our guys are fired up about the opportunity," Tang said of the postseason.
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State men's basketball at West Virginia analysis
