Kansas Jayhawks drill West Virginia in Big 12 Tournament as Bob Huggins is ejected early
Kansas’ men’s basketball fans certainly enjoyed the play of the fastbreaking Jayhawks, who raced to a 15-point lead nine minutes into Thursday’s Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
The same can’t be said of veteran West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. He picked up a pair of technical fouls following a technical call on WVU guard Taz Sherman and was ejected with 9:58 remaining in the first half of KU’s 87-63 victory.
KU’s Jalen Wilson hit five of six technical foul shots, giving KU a 24-4 lead. Wilson finished with 15 points and five boards for the No. 6-ranked and top-seeded Jayhawks (26-6), who advanced into Friday’s 6 p.m. semifinal matchup against No. 5 seed TCU, a 65-60 winner over Texas in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
“I am going to stand up for my guys. I have never not stood up for my guys, so I mean it is what it is,” Huggins said of his ejection in his postgame session with the media.
Huggins headed to the locker room after a game-opening stretch in which ninth-seeded WVU made one of its first 16 shots to KU’s 8 of 13 mark. Huggins didn’t specify what angered him, but suffice it to say he thought Sherman had been fouled on one or maybe two occasions.
“I can tell you a lot,” Huggins said, “but it wouldn’t do me any good or West Virginia University any good so I’ll leave it at that.”
Assistant coach Larry Harrison coached the Mountaineers (16-17) the rest of the game.
Asked if he was surprised at receiving his second and final T shortly after being whistled for his first, Huggins said: “I’ve done this for 45 years. I’m not surprised at much.”
KU coach Bill Self said he never wanted to see his friend, Huggins, removed from a game.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Self said. “I think we were all disappointed, not saying good or bad, but you hate that Bob wasn’t on the bench.
“I know it was disappointing for them, but nobody wants that. We caught a big break there. It’s not a break that we wanted.”
Self, who is in his 19th season at KU, said he can not recall a situation in a game in which a team was awarded six straight free throws off technical fouls.
“The only thing that was positive about it and it wasn’t from a game standpoint was Jalen Wilson’s family likes me a lot more today than maybe some other days and Christian’s or David’s would have liked me more if I would have picked them,” Self said of Christian Braun (11 points, career-high 14 rebounds) and David McCormack (nine points, five boards in just 10 minutes).
“I can’t remember being part of anything like that,” Self added.
Self and Huggins chatted outside the interview room for a few moments after Self’s postgame news conference and right before Huggins’ media session.
Huggins was asked what it was like watching most of the game from the locker room.
“They need to put bigger TVs in there. The TVs are awfully small, so I really had a hard time of getting the true picture of what was going on with those dinky TVs they have in there,” Huggins said. “They really need to upgrade that system.”
West Virginia guard Sean McNeil (three points, 1-of-9 shooting) was asked if he felt Huggins was trying to defend his players.
“He was definitely trying to defend us. That’s what he’s done all year. It’s not my place to say whether the calls were right or wrong. My job is to play,” McNeil said. “The tech sequence was early. Even in the second half we still cut the lead a little bit. We had a lot of time left to play. We just couldn’t get it done.”
West Virginia did cut the deficit to 14 points in the second half but never made a serious run to get back in the game.
Ochai Agbaji scored 18 points, while Dajuan Harris had seven assists to go with six points. He put down a breakaway dunk late in the game. Malik Curry had 19 points for WVU.
KU hit 33 of 63 shots (52.4%) and made 6 of 18 three-pointers. WVU hit 19 of 58 shots (32.8%) and made 6 of 14 threes.
Agbaji, who scored nine of KU’s first 13 points as the Jayhawks opened a 13-2 lead, finished with 11 points in the first half. David McCormack, who picked up two fouls early, played four minutes the initial half and finished with nine points and five rebounds in just 10 minutes.
Lightfoot had eight points in 11 minutes the first half. He also had three blocks. He finished with 10 points, five rebounds and five blocked shots.
West Virginia, which defeated Kansas State in Wednesday night’s first-round game, hit 5 of 31 shots in the half for 16.1%.
West Virginia in the second half managed to cut the deficit to 15 points (52-37) with 14:11 left. It was 14 points (57-43) following a pair of WVU layups at 11:17. Up 59-43 at 10:42, KU outscored WVU 7-2 and led 66-45 at 7:59. Harris and Joseph Yesufu had buckets and Jalen Coleman-Lands a three.
“It really is good to get a win like that,” Braun said, “to start off fast and then we got off our feet for a little bit, get to focus on our next game. We got everybody involved so that was good. We got a lot of confidence going into our next game.”
Of McCormack playing just 10 minutes, Self said: “I didn’t think Dave got off to a good start. I didn’t play him the first half much and then starting the second half he wasn’t moving very well. He missed Och for an uncontested layup so I took him out and sat him a long time. That’s about the amount he should have played knowing that we’ve got a big one tomorrow too. If the game would have been different he would have played more but I thought Mitch played well and I would rather have Dave fresh tomorrow.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Kansas Jayhawks drill West Virginia in Big 12 Tournament as Bob Huggins is ejected early."
