Jayhawks trail West Virginia by 14 points
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Frank Mason III and Devonte Graham never felt as though the game was over, even when they huddled around coach Bill Self with less than four minutes to go and Kansas trailing West Virginia by 14 points.
“We just talked about staying in it. ‘We can do it.’ Coach kept telling us we were going to step up and make plays,” Graham said later, “and everybody stepped up and made plays.” COLLEGE BASKETBALL
The two starting guards made the ones that mattered most.
Mason poured in 24 points, including the two free throws that forced overtime, and Graham hit two of his five 3-pointers in the extra period and finished with 18 points as the third-ranked Jayhawks stormed back to stun the No. 9 Mountaineers 84-80 on Monday night and assume control of the Big 12 race.
Josh Jackson also had 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Jayhawks (23-3, 11-2), who avenged a loss in Morgantown while extending their lead over fourth-ranked Baylor to two games in the league standings.
“It was huge to play that hard and compete that hard and not have anything good happen for so long, and the guys just hung in there,” Self said. “I still don’t know how we did it.”
Esa Ahmad scored 20 points and Tarik Phillip had 18 for the Mountaineers (20-6, 8-5), who appeared to have the game locked up when they led 64-50 with 2:58 left in the second half.
Kansas answered with some more Allen Fieldhouse magic.
Spurred on by their own version of a full-court defense, the Jayhawks began forcing turnovers and turning them into easy baskets. And by the time Graham curled in a 3-pointer, Phillip threw the ball away and Mason made a pair of free throws, it was 71-all with 21.6 seconds left in regulation.
The Mountaineers called a timeout with 16.1 seconds to go to set up a final play, and they managed to get Phillip isolated on the wing. But his long 3-pointer clanked off the iron as the buzzer sounded.
“I was just trying to keep positive,” Ahmad said. “I was just trying to keep fighting.”
Any fight the Mountaineers had left withered away as Kansas scored the next eight points.
“We just didn’t take care of the ball like we normally do,” West Virginia’s Nathan Adrian said.
The Jayhawks had their 51-game winning streak at the Phog snapped by Iowa State just more than a week ago, but they still have not lost consecutive home games since February 1989. They also have never been swept in the regular season by a Big 12 foe in 14 years with Self on the sideline.
It helped that they got to the foul line 44 times, making 33 of them.
■ No. 2 Villanova 75, DePaul 62 — At Rosemont, Ill., Jalen Brunson scored 18 points, Josh Hart had 16 and Villanova (25-2, 12-2 Big East) beat lowly DePaul (8-18, 1-12) for its sixth straight victory.
■ Texas Tech 84, No. 4 Baylor 78 — At Lubbock, Texas, Keenan Evans scored 23 points, Niem Stevenson had 21 and Texas Tech (17-9, 5-8 Big 12) toppled Baylor (22-4, 9-4) after blowing an early 12-point lead.
■ No. 8 Louisville 76, Syracuse 72, OT — At Syracuse, N.Y., Louisville (215, 9-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) scored 10 consecutive points in overtime, including five straight by Anas Mahmoud, to outlast Syracuse (1611, 8-6).