Mar 5, 2023 By Bob Hertzel for The 4 min read

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It was Senior Day, a sellout crowd in the WVU Coliseum, with the home team fighting for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. The 14,111 fans were a bit late arriving — blame it on traffic, they always do in Morgantown.

The team was a bit late arriving, too, and traffic had nothing to do with it.

The table was set for a huge performance from the Mountaineers with everything to play for, but …

“We got off to a rotten start,” Erik Stevenson admitted.

He did, in particular.

It took Kansas State 17 seconds to score, and 13 seconds later, Stevenson threw a pass away, then committed a foul, then missed a 3-point shot.

K-State built its lead to 8-0 with 17:49 left.

Coach Bob Huggins called a timeout, the best timeout he has called since coming to West Virginia.

“We were just setting them up,” Huggins joked after Stevenson had finished off a 27-point performance on Senior Day and was joined by 23-point performance from fellow senior Kedrian Johnson and 20 points from yet a third senior in Emmitt Matthews Jr.

The result of all that was that WVU overwhelmed the 12th-ranked Wildcats (23-8, 11-7), who were playing for the second seed in the Big 12 Tournament, 89-81, in a fast-paced, wild game that saw 36 turnovers, 37 fouls, 24 steals, including six from Johnson and six from K-State guard Markquis Nowell, who also scored 24 points, 23 of them after halftime.

“It seemed like they came out with a little more energy than we did. We took some bad shots. We got it turned, and that’s the important thing,” Huggins said of the timeout.

West Virginia (18-13, 7-11) went in at halftime with a two-point lead but with the crowd roaring.

He had a few more words for his players about turnovers.

“That was the focus at halftime — stop turning the ball over,” Huggins said. “I think the majority of their points in the first half came on our turnovers, or our turnovers led to their scoring on the run.”

It was a more settled group of Mountaineers after halftime, a team playing for its basketball life, and it went after them behind Matthews, Stevenson and Johnson.

This was a game WVU would not have won earlier in the season. There were shots that Stevenson wouldn’t have made earlier in the season.

He came back and made shots, 11 of 22, finishing with more than 20 points for the fifth straight game.

“Erik struggled to make shots for a while, and Erik has a bad foot, as well,” Huggins said. “I think guys started depending on him, and he felt that they were depending more on him. I think you play a little looser then.

“He does not have a problem playing loose the way it is, but the other guys have been great encouragement to him, as well as him to them. I think they’ve helped Erik more than anyone else, just those guys saying, ‘Hey man, we’re depending on you.’ That goes a long way.”

The game mirrored the Big 12 season for the Mountaineers. WVU started 0-5 in Big 12 play and, to be honest, it wasn’t certain if it would win any conference games, as tough as the league was. But that’s where the seniors took over.

“Kedrian (Johnson) has been fantastic,” Huggins said. “Emmitt took a step back a little bit, having left and come back. Then, he became a little bit more comfortable. He’s a great leader.

“Erik is going to lead whether it’s the right thing or not. He is that guy. Those guys have been terrific and they’ve gotten better and better and better.

“I think they’ve been forced to grow because of the things that we continue to put on their backs and, really, you don’t have any choice. You won’t do that with freshmen.”

The Mountaineers took over the game in the second half, scoring 50 points with a dazzling display not only of offense with some fancy, secure ball handling, but also with defense … except what they did with Nowell.

“Tonight was unreal,” Matthews said. “The intensity, how loud it got. We played hard like seniors who do not want to lose their last game.”