Local Collegiate Athletics

On Sunday, however, with West’s son Jarrod Jr. in Marshall’s lineup, there was no buzzer-beater. There was, in fact, very little drama whatsoever.

That’s because the Mountaineers (26-10) thoroughly dominated the Thundering Herd in the paint and everywhere else in a 94-71 rout, sending West Virginia to its third Sweet 16 appearance in the last four years. The fifth-seeded Mountaineers will now travel to Boston for a Friday matchup with No. 1 seed Villanova. The Big 12 will be sending one quarter of the teams to the Sweet 16, with WVU, Kansas, Kansas State and Texas Tech all going.

Sunday’s late affair was somewhat surprising not because West Virginia won — the Mountaineers were, after all, a 12.5-point favorite — but because of the decisiveness. After MU stunned No. 4 seed Wichita State here Friday, many expected a tight, emotion-filled battle. It turned out, however, to be much like the prior game before the controversial ending to the series. Back in 2015, Jevon Carter had 15 points to lead the Mountaineers to an 86-68 victory. MU standout and Charleston native Jon Elmore was then held to 14.

This time it was much of the same — and more for WVU. Carter led the Mountaineers in scoring with 28 on 10-of-18 shooting, while Elmore was held down for most of the game and finished with 15. West Virginia outrebounded Marshall 40-24.

“My teammates did an unbelievable job of getting me open,” Carter said. “I came off a lot of screens. I just played within the game. I just let the game come to me. I just let my defense turn into offense.”

“You’ve got to give them credit,” said MU coach Dan D’Antoni of WVU. “They’re tough.”

In sum, it was a runaway.

With 5:58 remaining, WVU was up by 31. And perhaps two second-half plays symbolized this one.

The first was when WVU was coming out of a timeout at the 13:46 mark. Junior Esa Ahmad threw an alley-oop pass to sophomore Sagaba Konate for a thunderous dunk.

The second was with 8:13 remaining. It was when red-hot Carter, deep in the left corner, took a pass, put up a trey and was fouled by Ot Elmore. The shot went in. And Carter gave a death stare to the crowd. He completed the 4-point play to give West Virginia a 30-point 77-47 lead.

The only bad note for the Mountaineers was Wes Harris’ clash with MU’s Jannson Williams at 8:21 of the first half. Harris was held out the rest of the game with concussion-like symptoms and Williams was reportedly sent to the hospital.

Otherwise, the night was almost completely owned by WVU.

“We did it for the state,” said Mountaineer forward Lamont West, who finished with 18. “We just wanted to go out there and play hard. We didn’t want to go home with an ‘L.’ We just did what we do. We played hard and came out with a ‘W.’”

As has been the case, it seems, in every WVU game of late, the Mountaineers had a cold hand shooting early. Marshall, meanwhile, hit three of its first four attempts – all treys – and moved out to an 8-point, 16-8 lead on a Darius George 3-pointer at 13:56.

Now, though, the goal of the No. 5 seed Mountaineers is simply to make a splash at the NCAA tournament — beginning at approximately 4 p.m. Friday at the Veijas Arena on the campus of San Diego State University. The game will be televised by TNT.

“We’re ready,” said WVU guard James “Beetle” Bolden. “We talked a little bit as a team. We’re focused and I think we’re ready to go out there and play.”

The Mountaineers (24-10) enter with a final Associated Press ranking of No. 15 and a current USA Today coaches poll ranking of No. 14. WVU’s opponent is No. 12 seed Murray State (26-5), which won the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season and tournament championships.

The focus in WVU’s camp, however, has been squarely on the practices leading into the first round. Mountaineer coach Bob Huggins this week pointed back to 2016 and the less-than-stellar practices heading into the loss to Stephen F. Austin. On Thursday, though, he seemed somewhat pleased.

“We’re better than we were then,” he said. “They could have been better. They could have been worse. … We were OK [Wednesday]. Actually, I thought we were pretty good. Most of us. Everybody wasn’t, but most of them were.”

Where it appears West Virginia will have to be very good on Friday is against Murray State’s trio of 3-point shooters. The Racers are led by point guard Jonathan Stark, the OVC Player of the Year and tournament MVP. He led Murray State’s league in scoring for a second straight year at 21.8 points a game.

Also, though, Terrell Miller, a 6-foot-8 wide body, can step out and hit the trey. He’s averaging 14.7 points and 8.2 rebounds. MSU as a team is hitting 37.9 percent of their 3-point attempts (WVU is at 35.3), but Stark (41 percent), Miller (39.2) and Hawkins (39.5) combine to hit 40.2 percent of the time.

“We worked a lot on getting back in transition,” said Mountaineer forward Teddy Allen. “Getting to the shooters. Know who the shooters are. We went over the scouting report a lot, so we know who can shoot and who we need to find in transition.”

On the other end, Murray State will have to handle West Virginia’s press. The Racers run a two-point-guard offense, which should help break that, but MSU coach Matt McMahon said Thursday his team must be prepared.

“We haven’t played anyone to the level of what they do,” McMahon said of the Mountaineers. “They’re second in the country in forced turnover percentage — and they hit you for 40 straight minutes. We’ve played against pressing teams, but we know this will be different.”

WVU is now No. 10 nationally in turnovers forced at 16.5 a game. Murray State is averaging 11.9 turnovers.

McMahon, meanwhile, pointed to rebounding as a key.

“I think it’s a big factor in winning,” he said. “We’ve been a good rebounding team all season long. Now this is about to be another level.”

West Virginia is No. 5 nationally in offensive rebounds, averaging 14 a game.

And there is this: The entire team is playing its first NCAA tournament game, as the program has not sniffed the Big Dance in 31 years. Even Rondale Watson, who began his career at Wake Forest, has not played in the event.

Wichita State (25-7), a double-digit favorite in this 4-vs.-13 matchup, has a mountain of experience. This is the seventh consecutive trip to the NCAAs under coach Gregg Marshall, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Shockers have six seniors, including four regular starters and two who have started at least two games. Nine of the 10 players who saw NCAA action last year are back, and six current Shockers have played in multiple tourneys.

Big man Shaquille Morris, Zach Brown and Rashard Kelly are playing in their fourth tournament in a Wichita uniform, and Connor Frankamp is also playing his fourth tourney, the first coming while he was a freshman at Kansas.

Wichita State’s Marshall is coaching his 14th tourney, including seven at Winthrop, so he has the experience advantage on most coaches. And he admits this is one of the easier teams he has coached.

“Yeah, this is a very experienced group,” Marshall said Thursday. “You have six seniors [and] Markis McDuffie and Landry Shamet are in their third years, so we have a lot of college basketball experience. This group, they know what they’re trying to do as well as the coaching staff.

“We’ve had a lot of good senior classes in the last seven, eight years, and their group has been very special in their own right, and now it would be nice to put a bow on top and make a deep run.”

The Herd (24-10) aims to halt that, and knows the size of the task ahead. But MU is riding a four-game winning streak, including a bye-capturing win over 24th-ranked Middle Tennessee and a Conference USA championship game thriller over Western Kentucky.

Certainly, the Herd has grown up in the past four months.

“I would say it’s a matter of focus,” said top scorer Jon Elmore. “With our young guys and kind of early on in the season, we had our bumps. But as the season progressed, you see those young guys learning. They’re sharper, more fluent in what we want to do, are more fluid.”

What the Herd will throw at the Shockers is its NBA-style offense that opponents don’t face often. The Shockers’ are playing at a faster pace this season, but …

“I’m not sure we play as fast as them,” said Shamet, the point guard who leads the team in scoring with 15 points per game. “In film, we have seen them come down and take the first semi-open look they get. They play a unique style of basketball which is not very identical to ours.”

Marshall compared MU’s pace to those at Savannah State, Oklahoma and South Dakota State. The Shockers pounded Savannah 112-66 and beat South Dakota State 95-85, but lost 91-83 to Oklahoma.

“Teams that get up and shoot 3s, we struggled with all three of them. It’s hard to guard,” Marshall said. “When they play at that tempo and have that skill across the front line and into the backcourt, it’s difficult to guard.

“You have to be a tremendous defensive team.”

MU has to continue its improved defensive play, but that will not be easy. Shamet and Morris are all-American Athletic Conference performers, and the 6-foot-8, 279-pound Morris may present the most problems.