This won’t mean ANYTHING to you, or probably to the person reading this, but WVU is wearing the throwback jerseys that John Cena wore one time ON THE NIGHT that John Cena is retiring. I believe in fate, and if that doesn’t say “WVU win,” I don’t know what does (he says hopefully.)
I’ve been kind of nervous for this game. We’ve had a couple of cupcake games early on, and now this is our first chance at seeing what we can do against some real competition. According to just about every publication, they believe that Ohio State will finish in the middle of the table for Big 10 play. If we can pull this off, I’ll be less worried that we’ll finish last in the Big 12. If we don’t? Oh boy, will I be in a season-long depression.
The matchup I was worried about the most coming into this game was any of our bigs vs. Christoph Tilly. He’s a senior out of Germany, and he’s a legit 7’/240 pounds. He’s got a lot of touch around the rim and obviously rebounds very well. Despite my worries, we played very well against him specifically in the first half. Brenen Lorient drew the short stick to matchup against him, but he really came to play. Brenen finished the half with 10 points, hit 2 threes, and held Tilly to 1/5 shooting, along with causing him to have two turnovers.
Someone who we’re going to have to do a better job of guarding in the second half is John Mobley Jr. He finished the half with 8 points, and every time Ohio State needed a bucket he delivered. To their credit, Jasper Floyd and Amir Jenkins are trying to make him take difficult shots, the problem is that he is making them.
The team stats at the half look a lot better than I expected. We’re up 37–27, we’re shooting better from the field and from 3, and we’ve fouled less. We do have some things to clean up, obviously: we need to rebound a little better, we need to take care of the ball more, and we need to get in the paint more. Ya know, the things we need to do every single game. Other than that, I feel very confident in how we played and I’m hopeful that we can carry that over to the second half.
The story of this game for us was the ability to go on runs. At least 3 separate times we went on a 8–0 or more run, and that is exactly the kind of basketball we need to play to have success this year. I don’t even remember the last time we did that this season, so the fact that we did it against a Power 5 school is a big deal. I also think that seeing Coach Hodge adjust on the fly is a big deal. Ohio State’s size started to get the best of us, so he called on Harlan Obioha more. While it seems like a very simple choice for a coach to make, it’s important to see that kind of reactionary decision making when a problem gets thrown our way. To his credit, Ohioha did neutralize some of that size advantage that Ohio State had.
Ohio State went on a little bit of a run fueled by Amare Bynum. The announcers called it a “coming out party” and I would have to agree. A true freshman who averages 7 PPG comes out and has 17 against us with hyper efficiency, and was a HUGE energy shifter for the team. OF COURSE it would happen to us. This run by Amare would become vital to the story of this game.
I have never once shied away from the fact that I am a WVU fan through and through, but I have also tried to be forthright with our shortcomings. I will not be doing that tonight because these refs were on some BULLSHIT. Truly awful officiating in the last 7ish minutes of the game, and it almost always was to our detriment. At the very end of the game there were multiple foul calls that went against us, INCLUDING calling a charge on Jasper Floyd with 4 seconds left when we had a chance to win the game. Absolutely atrocious. You do NOT call that in this kind of game and the refs should be ashamed of themselves.
The game went into DOUBLE overtime and it went exactly as you’d expect; in a Monumental Mountaineer Meltdown. We were up 16 at one point in this game and we still weren’t able to hang on. Something I have been worried about all year long is that we don’t have anyone to generate offense outside of Honor Huff, and even at that he’s at his best when others are creating the opportunity for him. Jasper Floyd and Brenen Lorient did a good job in the first half but were basically nowhere to be found in the second or either overtimes. Honor had some late game heroics, but yet again, we foul late in the game and lose in spectacular fashion. We tried to get the ball into Honor’s hands with the chance to win the game with 3.3 left, but when you have to make a halfcourt pass, the chance to win is slim.
The refs absolutely fucked us multiples times throughout this game; we can’t control that. Something else we couldn’t control was Ohio State’s Senior guard Bruce Thornton. I do want to give credit where it is due; he finished the game with 23 points and 21 of them came when it mattered the most. He was absolutely the bullet that killed us in the second half and overtimes, and ultimately hit a tough game winner. I hate to lose, but if we’re going to, at least it was to a savvy senior guard with a killer mentality. There are worse ways to go out.
The only person that deserves it is Honor Huff, but to keep the tradition I started… The Roundball Big 3 of the Game.
Honor Huff: 22 points, 5 assists, 5 3s
Brenen Lorient: 18 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks
Jasper Floyd: 14 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals
That was a real tough pill to swallow. Luckily, we have a little bit of a break to either chew on it or get it out of our head completely. Our next game is December 22nd against Mississippi Valley State; our last game before Big 12 play. I love you, Dad. I miss you. I’ll see you then.
Round The Game 
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