West Virginia used a career-high 31 points from Erik Stevenson to defeat 15th-ranked Auburn 80-70 Saturday afternoon at a sold-out WVU Coliseum.
In a game that came down to the final play, Auburn guard Wendell Green Jr airballed his 3-point try to tie the game and James Okonkwo secured the rebound to give the Mountaineers their best non-conference win of the season.
"We got Erik open, basically," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said afterward. "We did a good job of playing on the fly a little bit and I thought we did a great job of screening and getting him open."
The Mountaineers may have done a good job of screening for Stevenson, but the senior guard also made several tough, contested shots with a defender in his face. His marksmanship included 7-of-10 from 3-point distance and 10-of-17 overall after missing 29 of his last 34 3-point tries coming into this afternoon's game.
West Virginia led throughout but saw its 16-point halftime lead evaporate to one with Johni Broome's layup with 5:16 left. The lead was also one at 3:59 and 2:17 to go when Jaylin Williams got the second of his two free throw attempts to go down. Had he made both, the game would have been tied.
Here, Stevenson banged his seventh 3 from the wing to make it a four-point game with 2:03 left. It got to six on two Okonkwo free throws, but West Virginia allowed the door to remain open because of some missed free throws.
Kedrian Johnson missed a pair with 38 seconds left and Jaylin Williams made West Virginia pay with a 3 at the other end.
Johnson missed another one before using the entire rim to get his second one to go down with 16 seconds to go. That made it a four-point game and Auburn chose to get a quick two when Broome scored with 7.9 seconds left.
The Mountaineers successfully got the ball in play to Stevenson, who was fouled with six seconds remaining. He made the first but missed the second, which gave Auburn a chance to send it into overtime.
It was really a tale of two halves. In the first half, the Mountaineers shot 56% by going inside first and moving the ball well against Auburn's changing defenses.
In the second half, it was the Tigers scoring close to open the floor for their outside shooters. Twice, Auburn got three points when the shot clock was either at zero or one. The big one came with 14:50 left when Kedrian Johnson fouled Wendell Green near the Flying WV logo and the shot clock showing zero.
Not only did Green make all three to make it a nine-point game, but Johnson picked up his third foul and spent the next eight minutes watching from the bench.
"Keedy getting the three fouls really hurt us. He's our leader out there and the guy who gets people where they're supposed to go," Huggins said.
"When you have opportunities to step on people's throats, so to speak, you've got to do that and we didn't do that," he added. "We came out and didn't play near as hard at the start of the second half, and it kind of caught up with us."
Stevenson's seven 3s today were the most since Sean McNeil had seven in West Virginia's NCAA Tournament loss to Syracuse in 2001 and were two shy of graduate assistant coach Alex Ruoff's school-record nine 3s he made against Radford on Dec. 23, 2008.
Forward Jimmy Bell Jr., who made a couple of critical baskets in the second half to stop Auburn runs, was the only other Mountaineer to reach double figures with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting. He also grabbed a team-best seven rebounds.
Once again, Okonkwo was on the floor during critical moments in the second half and he finished with 6 points, four rebounds and two more impressive blocks. Those two free throws he made with 1:16 left were huge.
West Virginia's two bigs, Bell Jr. and Okonkwo, combined to make 9-of-10 from the free throw line.
Turnovers, an issue in West Virginia's last two games against Texas and Texas Tech, were much better today. The Mountaineers finished with 12 after committing seven in the first half.
"We didn't get the ball movement in the second half that we got in the first half," Huggins admitted.
Williams led four Tiger double-figure scorers with 18.
Auburn outscored West Virginia 42 to 24 in the paint and 22 to 17 off its bench, but WVU once again made up for it from the 3-point arc by connecting on 9-of-20. Three nights ago in Lubbock, WVU was 10-of-35 from behind the arc to snap its 12-game Big 12 road losing streak.
A crowd of 14,116, including Auburn legend Charles Barkley, who was Huggins' guest at his annual Fish Fry fundraiser for the Norma Mae Huggins Cancer Endowment on Friday night, watched the Mountaineers beat a top 15 team for the second time in 10 days.
Auburn's 30 NET ranking should give West Virginia's NET a big boost once today's action is completed. The Mountaineers, despite losing eight games so far this year, came into this afternoon ranked 25th in the NET.
The Tigers, now 16-5 overall, have now lost two in a row for the first time this season.
West Virginia is now 3-7 in Big 12/SEC challenge games and gives the Big 12 an early 1-0 lead in today's action. Other games today feature second-ranked Alabama at Oklahoma, Texas Tech at LSU, No. 12 Iowa State at Missouri, No. 11 TCU at Mississippi State, Arkansas at No. 17 Baylor, No. 10 Texas at Tennessee, Florida at No. 5 Kansas State, No. 9 Kansas at Kentucky and Ole Miss at Oklahoma State.
West Virginia resumes Big 12 play next Wednesday night at TCU. The Mountaineers upset the Horned Frogs 74-65 in Morgantown back on Jan. 18.
