by By John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia got a career-high 16 points from Patrick Suemnick to knock off 25th-ranked Texas 76-73 at the WVU Coliseum Saturday night.
Suemnick, who recently got into the starting lineup after a 12-point effort in WVU’s blowout loss at Houston last Saturday, made 5 of his 7 field goal attempts, including a couple of pretty one-handed reverse dunks; made 6 of 12 from the free throw line and grabbed six rebounds.
“(Suemnick) was awesome,” West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. “I kept talking the last couple of days for him to build on this, and he’s carrying himself a little bit differently. In the game of basketball, when you get that confidence rolling sometimes you are hard to stop.”
Kerr Kriisa and RaeQuan Battle contributed 14 each, while Quinn Slazinski added 13 coming off the bench.
The outcome of tonight’s game was determined at the free throw line where West Virginia got 20 more attempts than the Longhorns. Texas was over the foul limit with 11:34 left in the game and WVU cashed in, making 11 of its final 15 free throws.
Texas (12-4, 1-2) turned the ball over 22 times and despite having a significant size advantage over West Virginia, was outrebounded by one, 32-31.
Kriisa’s 3-point shooting in the first half kept West Virginia in the game, but forward Akok Akok hit perhaps the biggest 3 from near the Mountaineer bench to give WVU a 52-46 lead with 10:05 left.
Akok also recorded a big block when Max Abmas tried to score close to the basket and then recorded a dunk at the other end with 45.2 seconds left to give the Mountaineers a 70-65 lead.
West Virginia’s biggest lead was 11, 59-48, with 5:45 remaining on a pair of Slazinski free throws.
Abmas, who finished with a game-high 32 points, kept Texas within reach on 3s with 2:29 left, with 1:30 left and with 22 seconds left to make it a one-possession game.
After the Abmas 3 and Texas’ 30-second timeout, West Virginia broke full-court pressure leading to two Slazinski free throws. Abmas made two free throws at the other end with 14 seconds left, and once again, WVU got through pressure leading to a pair of Battle free throws one second later.
Abmas, trying to maneuver into position to try another 3, dribbled the ball off his foot at midcourt and into the arms of Slazinski, who was fouled by Abmas with nine seconds left. Slazinski made the first of two and Abmas ended the game with his seventh 3.
“Abmas didn’t make it easy on us late,” Eilert said. “He was making some crazy shots, but credit to our guys. They took a new approach and some new strategy and took two days to implement it and they 100% bought in.”
The changes Eilert were alluding to came on the defensive end.
“We really had to shore up the points in the paint,” Eilert explained. “The first couple games in the league I think they were averaging close to 45 points per game in the paint, and so we played a lot more in gaps and I wanted those guys to not feel like they were on an island and put more ball pressure on there. If we have people behind them in gaps, then they can’t go downhill on us.
“We weren’t perfect by any means, but in basketball you’re always trying to figure out what you can live with because when you take something away, you’re going to have to live with something,” Eilert added. “They did hit nine 3s on us, but we did shore up the paint.”
Texas was only able to get four minutes out of starting center Chendall Weaver, who has been dealing with back spasms, but his replacement, Dylan Disu, was one of the heroes in Tuesday night’s come-from-behind win at Cincinnati.
Disu chipped in with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting before he fouled out with 2:16 remaining.
The Longhorns shot just 45.3% for the game and was outscored 25 to 9 by West Virginia’s bench.
The Mountaineers (6-10, 1-2) shot 53% in the second half and 44.7% overall for the game. Kriisa was 4 of 8 from behind the arc, Slazinski hit 2 of 3 and Akok was 1 of 2 as WVU made 7 of 17 for 41.2%.
West Virginia turned the ball over 16 times, leading to 18 Texas points, but the Mountaineers did a pretty good job of bottling up the Longhorns’ transition offense.
Tonight’s game was the seventh time this season West Virginia has led at halftime and the fourth time it has held on to win the game. In Tuesday night’s 81-67 loss to Kansas State, WVU led 42-40 at the break.
“We’ve been in this situation many times before and sometimes guys get lackadaisical and have lapses in judgment, whether it be quick shots on the offensive end or breakdowns on the defensive end and it snowballs in the wrong direction,” Eilert said. “They felt the energy in the way we were playing and if they bought in top to bottom, then we were going to have a chance to win.”
Tonight’s win gives Eilert his first victory against a nationally ranked opponent and it was West Virginia’s first since knocking off 11th-ranked Kansas State last March in overtime at the Coliseum.
Overall, its West Virginia’s 116th victory against a ranked team.
The Longhorns were making their final appearance in the WVU Coliseum as Big 12 members. Next year Texas will be playing in the SEC.
The two teams will meet again in Austin on Saturday, Feb. 10.
An announced crowd of 11,565 attended tonight’s game.
WVU will play another ranked opponent next Wednesday night when it travels to ninth-ranked Oklahoma. The Sooners were defeated 78-66 at third-ranked Kansas earlier today.
West Virginia’s victory over Texas was the latest upset in a wild and woolly Big 12. TCU and Iowa State both defeated third-ranked Houston this week; UCF knocked off Kansas earlier this week, and today, Texas Tech held on to beat Kansas State.
