West Virginia Escapes 80-76 Over Texas Tech

There are no words to describe how unwatchable this game was, but that was one hell of a payoff.

In a lot of ways, the West Virginia Mountaineers did not deserve to win that game. WVU continued their mojo-less ways throughout most of this game by being out-hustled by Tubby Smith's Texas Tech Red Raiders. Even when the Mountaineers had hit a few threes in a row in the first half to build a comfortable seven point lead at the last media timeout, they were unable to build on it and Tech battled their way to a halftime lead 43-40.

The second half was more of the same with questionable officiating and a lethargic effort from the Mountaineers to juxtapose Zach Smith's acrobatic dunks totaling to what must be a career high 18 points for the Texas Tech sophomore forward from Plano. A Smith dunk and Justin Gray jumper gave the Red Raiders a five point lead and looked to be the dagger as Huggins was forced to take a timeout with just over two minutes left. Daxter Miles Jr. comes out of the break and hit two threes to force the issue with the Mountaineers down by 1 with a minute left. Tarik Phillip finishes the game off in the most satisfying way possible: with two steals for two dunks, the last one leaving 0.7 second left.

You can view the full boxscore here which, if read aloud line by line, would be more entertaining than a majority of this contest.

Notes:

• Cannot emphasize enough how ugly this game was. Even with Zach Smith jumping out of the gym and both teams shooting 40-50%, this game was a tough watch.
• Jevon Carter is starting to do Truck Bryant things. Not the good things that Freshman Truck did, but the other, make-you-curse-in-front-of-impressionable-toddlers Truck things.
• We need to nail down a date for Jonathan Holton Appreciation Day. The kid fights like none other and this team very well may be lost without him.
• Hopefully the Mountaineers can build on this. WVU looked down and out with two minutes to go and I don't even want to think of the articles that would have followed if that result would have proved true. We don't need another dark age. I'm enjoying this one too much.
• I like Texas Tech's court. Fight me.