Self-criticism
Despite Kansas’ romp to the Big 12 tournament final, coach Bill Self was none too happy.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — West Virginia has made a habit of reaching the Big 12 tournament title game lately.
Now, the Mountaineers will try to end their habit of losing it.
Daxter Miles Jr. scored 22 points and Jevon Carter added 17, and the tournament’s No. 3 seed advanced to its third straight championship game Friday night when Texas Tech’s Niem Stevenson missed a halfcourt heave at the buzzer to give West Virginia a 66-63 victory over the No. 14 Red Raiders.
The challenge awaiting Saturday night: ninth-ranked Kansas (26-7).
“It means everything at this point,” Miles said. “We just have to be ready.”
The Mountaineers (24-9) haven’t won a postseason conference title since 2010, when they were members of the Big East and the games were at Madison Square Garden.
The Mountaineers were swept by Kansas in the regular season, losing 71-66 in Morgantown and 77-69 in Lawrence.
Asked what needs to change, coach Bob Huggins said: “Score more points than them. I don’t know. We played pretty well, they played pretty well. Two pretty well-played games. So I don’t know. Make another shot, maybe. Get a free throw.”
Miles had a chance to clinch Friday night’s semifinal from the foul line with six seconds left, but he only made the first of two free throws.
Texas Tech (24-9) corralled the rebound but struggled to get the ball up court, and Stevenson resorted to a half-court shot to tie the game. It bounced off the rim, sending the Raiders home.
Jarrett Culver had 16 points for Texas Tech, which led 57-56 with four minutes to go but was unable to hang on. Keenan Evans added 13 points, but the star guard was 5-of-14 from the field, and missed two crucial free throws and a tightly contested 3-pointer in the final 90 seconds.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for them,” Red Raiders coach Chris Beard said. “It was kind of an ugly game, but West Virginia makes you play ugly with their toughness and physicality.”
West Virginia leaned on its frenetic, full-court press to cause problems and create turnovers, just like the Mountaineers did
Results/schedule
in their quarterfinal win over Baylor. Texas Tech leaned on its gritty, in-your-face, half-court defense to force West Virginia into a bushel of misses.
The Jayhawks absorbed the biggest blows the short-handed Wildcats could land, played without their star big man for the second straight game and won their Big 12 tournament semifinal comfortably.
You’d think that would make coach Bill Self happy.
“I thought they played better than us,” he said after an 83-67 victory Friday night, “but I thought a lot of it was self-inflected. We couldn’t guard them and offensively we weren’t very smart.
“If I sleep two hours tonight, it’ll be more than I probably think I should.” So much for good feelings. Malik Newman scored 22 points, Devonte Graham added 15 points and Svi Mykhailiuk had 12 for the top-seeded Jayhawks (26-7), who nevertheless cruised into a title matchup with No. 18 West Virginia (24-9) on Saturday night at the Sprint Center.
It was the Jayhawks’ eighth straight win over Kansas State (23-10), and they remained perfect in 10 games against their cross-state rival in the Big 12 tournament.
The fourth-seeded Wildcats learned Friday morning they would be without All-Big 12 forward Dean Wade, who hurt his foot in their quarterfinal win over TCU. Then they lost starting guard Barry Brown early against the Jayhawks when he was poked in the eye.
“You can’t prepare for Barry going down the first play,” Wildcats coach Bruce Weber said. “He had very little vision. He wanted to play. He kept saying, ‘Put me in.’ But I held up fingers and asked him how many and he couldn’t say.”
Unheralded forward Makol Mawien stepped up with a career-high 29 points.