West Virginia got 18 points and seven assists from Javon Small to defeat Utah 71-69 Tuesday night at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Playing nearly 2,000 miles and two time zones away from campus, 4,265 feet above sea level, on the backend of a five-day road trip and with a beat-up and dwindling roster, the Mountaineers overcame all of that and more to pick up a critical 18th victory and sixth Quad 1 win of the season.
Those Quad 1 wins are why the Mountaineers have been comfortably on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble all season long, and No. 6 tonight further enhances their postseason profile.
The triumph also keeps West Virginia in contention for an eighth-place finish and an opening game bye in the Big 12 tournament coming up next week In Kansas City.
Currently, WVU is tied with TCU at 9-10 and Kansas State is a half-game behind at 8-10 with a game tomorrow night at Cincinnati.
West Virginia closes out its regular season Saturday evening at the WVU Coliseum against UCF, TCU concludes its regular season at last-place Colorado while Kansas State will be taking on Iowa State. There are other pathways for WVU to get a first-round bye if Baylor and Kansas also finish the regular season with .500 conference records.
"We had a lot on the line for this game tonight and our guys knew that," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said afterward. "It's easy when you don't have it and you are not playing well to give into that, but I thought they just did a really good job of staying together in the huddles, continuing to fight and finding ways to make those little plays.
"This is just a huge win for us, a Quad 1 win on the road and now we get to come home in front of a sold-out Coliseum for UCF, and we've got these seniors to be recognized," he added. "Let's show our appreciation for what this team has done all year long."
Tonight, West Virginia overcame a 12-point first half deficit and another near late-game implosion to secure its fourth conference road win of the year.
Utah (16-14, 8-11) jumped out to a 19-7 lead on its Senior Night before West Virginia finally got its footing at the 10-minute mark of the first half.
Small got things going with a layup, Amani Hansberry tallied another basket and then Joseph Yesufu and Jonathan Powell added 3s to reduce Utah's lead to 19-17.
Then, the Mountaineers used an 11-4 run over the remaining 4:05 to take a 30-29 lead into the locker room at halftime.
In the meantime, play was delayed with 19 seconds left after Eduardo Andre was inadvertently struck in the nose while defending Lawson Lovering's tip-in basket and had to be helped off the floor and into the locker room.
Veteran athletic trainer Randy Meador was able to get Andre's nose to stop bleeding long enough for him to play seven critical minutes in the second half when the Mountaineers encountered serious foul trouble.
"Playing with those cotton things in his nose, he probably needed a whole quart of blood as much as that thing was leaking," DeVries said.
Toby Okani ended up fouling out with 1:03 left and Hansberry managed to finish the game with four fouls.
Another significant free throw shooting disparity nearly did in West Virginia once again tonight with the Utes attempting twice as many foul shots as the Mountaineers' 16, but Utah missed 10, including five from Lovering.
Utah began the second half on a 15-6 run to take an eight-point lead, 44-36, but the Mountaineers rallied with baskets from Okani and KJ Tenner, and then had an 8-3 spurt to retake the lead on Powell's triple from the wing.
Free throws from Yesufu, a Small 3 and then Andre's alley oop dunk off Small's lob toward the basket put the Mountaineers ahead 63-58 with 2:52 left.
"I thought in the second half we really dug in and make some stops as the half wore on, and then offensively I thought we found a little more rhythm getting in the paint and making plays for one another," DeVries said.
The margin got to six on Small's runner and two Yesufu free throws with 12 seconds left, and it looked like the Mountaineers were in the clear.
But Gabe Madsen knocked down his fifth 3 with five seconds left and Jake Whalin stole the inbound and converted the layup with 1.2 seconds left to pull the Utes to within a point.
Utah, without any timeouts left, immediately fouled Sencire Harris, who missed the first free throw and made the second, and Madsen's frantic shot to win the game from beyond midcourt was blocked by Yesufu.
"That was a fun ending again," DeVries said.
Madsen finished with a game-high 23 points.
Utah shot just 38% from the floor and committed 16 turnovers for the game.
"We didn't have much that first 15 minutes, and I don't know what the factors were, a long road trip or whatever it was, but I was really proud of the guys because they bounced out of it and started to find it a little bit," DeVries said.
The Mountaineers actually outscored the much taller Utes in the paint, 30 to 20. More than half of Utah's 50 field goal attempts (28) came from behind the 3-point arc.
Hansberry and Yesufu contributed 12 each, while Powell finished with 10 for the Mountaineers, which sweep the season series against Utah.
The Utes are being coached on an interim basis by Josh Eilert, who was West Virginia's interim coach last season. Utah fired its fourth-year coach Craig Smith after the UCF loss with four games left in the regular season.
