West Virginia Falls To Kansas On The Road

The West Virginia Mountaineers (10-15, 2-10 Big 12) suffered their third straight 20+ point loss, this time at the hands of the No. 14 Kansas Jayhawks, 78-53, in Lawrence. The loss moves the Mountaineers to 0-6 on the season in true road games.

Bob Huggins inserted freshman Emmitt Matthews Jr. in the starting lineup alongside Derek Culver, Lamont West, Jermaine Haley and Brandon Knapper, marking Matthews’ first career start. Trey Doomes remains the only Mountaineer on scholarship to not make it into the starting lineup this season. More on this in a moment.

Matthews put West Virginia on the board first with a second-chance basket off of an offensive rebound, and the Mountaineers managed to keep the game close through the first five minutes before the Jayhawks mounted an 11-0 run over the following two minutes.

Kansas turned the burners on in the closing 10 minutes of the half and the Mountaineers had no way to keep up, going into the locker room down 43-16 - setting the season record for lowest scoring in one half of play.

The second half saw the Mountaineers improve their 25% first half field goal percentage to 42%, but by that time it was too late to mount any sort of realistic comeback.

Lamont West and Chase Harler lead West Virginia with 11 points each, and Derek Culver finished one point shy of another double double - going for 9 points and 12 rebounds. Matthews finished with 7 points and 5 rebounds.

The Curious Case of Trey Doomes continued as the true freshman played less than a minute and recorded no stats. Walkon freshman Taevon Horton saw five minutes of action and scored two points.

West Virginia is back in action on Monday, when they take on the Kansas State Wildcats at home. That game is scheduled for a 9:00 PM tip and will be broadcast on ESPN. The last meeting between the two squads ended with a two point win for the Wildcats.