Cool under fire: 3rd-ranked Kansas runs past West Virginia, 76-62, in wild atmosphere with a first-half surprise

By Matt Tait     Jan 7, 2023

Associated Press
Kansas players meet on court during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against West Virginia in Morgantown, W.Va., Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Kathleen Batten)

Morgantown, W.V. — With a little more than five seconds to play in the first half of Saturday’s 76-62 Kansas victory at West Virginia, the WVU Mountaineer mascot fired the famed musket while play was still live.

The moment — call it a Mountaineer misfire — was the perfect way to sum up Saturday’s game, which featured all kinds of West Virginia miscues and missed shots and No. 3 Kansas fighting through every one of them to pick up its second road win in Big 12 play so far.

“Somebody asked me earlier (if I had) ever experienced that in (my) career,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after the victory. “And I’m going, ‘Well, this is the only place where they shoot a gun. It was a weird deal.”

Very weird.

The whole scene started with a missed 3-pointer from the right wing by Dajuan Harris Jr., who hit his first two triples of the night to give him nine in a row to start Big 12 play. Harris’ shot missed off the rim and bounced toward the left side of the lane, where junior Jalen Wilson grabbed it and raced back to the 3-point line hoping to beat the halftime buzzer.

As he did, the shot clock buzzer sounded. That was the first inadvertent sound. And then the musket fired, which typically signifies the end of each half at WVU Coliseum. Wilson shot it anyway, flinching as he let it fly, and KU’s KJ Adams rebounded the miss while looks of chaos spread across the court.

“It threw everything off for a second,” KU’s Kevin McCullar Jr. said. “I actually like stopped playing. I looked to the sideline and J-Wil shot it when the gun went off. But KJ kept playing. He wasn’t worried about it.”

The extra effort by Adams (14 points and three rebounds in 30 minutes before fouling out) led to a WVU foul and two Kansas free throws. More importantly, Adams sank the charity shots and put the Jayhawks up 42-35 at the half.

“That was big,” Self said. “We played too well the first half to (only) be up five.”

McCullar (12 points, 8 rebounds in 38 minutes) and Wilson (14 points, 14 rebounds in 34 minutes) agreed.

“We needed that,” McCullar said. “That’s KJ in a nutshell. He’s going to play hard every time he’s out there and we need him out there.”

Added Wilson: “Huge, huge. Going in to half with a bucket just kind of set the tone moving to the second half.”

Some wondered if a technical foul should have been called on the home team for the gun going off. According to the NCAA’s rules for artificial noisemakers, “The playing of musical instruments, amplified music, canned music or artificial noisemakers while the game is in progress shall be prohibited except during timeouts, intermissions and instant replay reviews by an official.”

No penalty was levied, however, and the two teams went to the locker room for the halftime break.

The second half opened much in the same way the first half played out, with West Virginia misfiring on its first possession and Kansas drilling a 3-pointer on its first offensive trip. That 3, one of 11 on the night for the Jayhawks, came via the banked-in variety from McCullar, who deadpanned after that game, “I work on that.”

For the third game in a row, the 3-point shot was working for the Jayhawks, who hit six in a row early in the game to take control and finished at 46% for the game.

“We made shots,” Self said. “We’ve had games where we’ve shot it well, but I don’t know that we’ve ever shot it 6-for-6 from 3 well. And it was all different guys.”

Gradey Dick (4-of-6 for 16 points) led the way with four, Harris (11 points, 4 assists and 0 turnovers in 31 minutes) drained three of the six he attempted and Wilson and McCullar each hit two.

West Virginia, meanwhile, shot just 4-of-20 from behind the 3-point line, shooting 20% from 3-point range and 35% overall.

“I think we did a decent job,” Self said when asked how much of WVU’s struggles shooting the ball was because of the Kansas defense. “I don’t think it was unbelievable. I think they missed some good looks. The thing about it is we rebounded the ball decent against a team that’s a good rebounding team. That was a big positive for us.”

Said WVU coach Bob Huggins of his team’s poor shooting: “We seemingly miss more 2-footers than any team in American history. It wasn’t like we didn’t have shots. We just don’t make them. But it’s hard to make a shot from 2 feet, 4 feet, or 8 feet if you’re not looking where you’re shooting it.”

As Self mentioned, the rebounding and free throw shooting were also big areas of Saturday’s win.

KU (14-1 overall, 3-0 Big 12) out-rebounded WVU (10-5, 0-3) 43-35 for the game, with Wilson leading all players with 14 boards and McCullar grabbing eight.

Throughout the week, the Jayhawks emphasized getting to the free throw line more and responded by making 17 of 19 on Saturday night. The 19 trips to the line were five more than KU had in its first two conference games combined.

Adams led the way with six makes in eight trips.

“It wasn’t our team getting to the line,” Self said. “It was KJ getting to the line. He had a matchup where he could use his quickness.”

Added Wilson: “Now it’s like you can’t even foul him. And he’s so aggressive it’s kind of hard not to foul him.”

Self also said that KU’s ability to basically match the Mountaineers from the free throw line — 17 of 19 for Kansas versus 18 of 28 for WVU — was critical considering the home team spend large portions of each half in the bonus.

“I think it was a dominant win,” Wilson said. “I think we set the tone really fast, never let them go on too big of a run and kind of just showed our composure on the road, our will to win.”

Saturday’s win marked the fourth in a row for the Jayhawks over the Mountaineers and the second in a row in Morgantown, where Kansas is now 5-6 under Self.

It also moved KU to 3-0 in the Big 12 for the 14th time in Self’s 20 seasons and, perhaps most importantly, pushed the Jayhawks to 2-0 on the road in Big 12 play.

“That’s huge,” McCullar said. “In the Big 12, winning on the road is hard and it brings your team together for sure. Every time you come to West Virginia, you know it’s going to be a physical game. Playing out here’s never easy. We were just competing hard and the refs were trying to keep it under control.”

KU sophomore Joe Yesufu returned to action after missing Tuesday’s game at Texas Tech because of a tweaked hamstring. He played 16 minutes and scored two points on 1-of-3 shooting.

Freshman guard MJ Rice did not play after suffering what Self called “back spasms” during Saturday’s pregame warm-up.

“He said he tweaked his back and couldn’t go,” Self said. “That was the only reason why he didn’t play because we would’ve used him for sure with our depth (foul) situation.”

Next up, the Jayhawks will return to Allen Fieldhouse for a pair of Big 12 games next week, Tuesday versus Oklahoma and next Saturday against Iowa State.

After Saturday’s games, which featured Kansas State winning at Baylor in overtime and Iowa State winning at TCU, KU, K-State and ISU sit alone at the top of the Big 12 standings at 3-0.

PREV POST

Quick recap: No. 3 Kansas rolls past West Virginia for another road win

NEXT POST

104194Cool under fire: 3rd-ranked Kansas runs past West Virginia, 76-62, in wild atmosphere with a first-half surprise

Author Photo

Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.