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Final
— First loss in a home-opener since 1988: Robert Morris.
FINAL: Buffalo 99, (13) WVU 94
A stunner. Bulls erase a 13-point deficit with 15:43 to go and ride a legendary performance from CJ Mbadinburg to top the Mountaineers. They were rudderless without Beetle Bolden down the stretch.https://t.co/8MzL76h9wc pic.twitter.com/VstUtVz5Od
— Mike Casazza (@mikecasazza) November 10, 2018
Pregame
— Beetle Bolden did everything in the pregame warmups.
— Derek Culver was in warmups, too.
— Senator Joe Manchin is here. I got caught behind him walking the concourse. He had a … mixed reception.
— Starters: Bolden, Harler, West, Ahmad and Konate.
First half
— First shot of the season for WVU is a missed Ahmad 3. First basket is a West 3.
— Oh boy. Konate cross-fades at the top of the key and makes a 3. Buffalo turns it over. West makes a corner 3 and is fouled. He hits the free throw, and it’s 10-2. Konate shouldn’t be able to do that.
— Rough regular-season debut for Jordan McCabe. Gets blown by on defense, and Buffalo hits a kickout 3. Misses a 3 behind a screen. Gets his rebound, is harbaded and kicks the ball out of play. “This ain’t high school boy,” a man yells at the 16:35 mark.
— Brandon Knapper subs in for McCabe and hits a straight on 3. WVU leads 13-5 and is 4-for-7 from 3-point range and 0-for-1 from 2-point range.
— Ahmad is 0-for-3 with a turnover, and Buffalo believe it can drive on him. He’s getting pulled.
— Make that two Ahmad turnovers. Chase Harler bails him out by taking a charger … in the circle and probably moving, too. Harler hurt his back in the preseason taking a charge.
— Buffalo is inside-out right now. WVU can’t stop the inside and Buffalo isn’t missing outside. It’s 13-12.
— WVU has turnovers on four straight possessions.
— At 12:38, WVU has a 2-pointer.
— Gordon triple threats from the elbow, drives and draws a shooting foul. Goes 1-for-2 at the foul line, but I need a second. That was out of a timeout, too.
— Bolden tried to get it to Gordon in the high post. It’s stolen. Gordon gets back and blocked a lob pbad off the backboard.
— Ahmad’s not endearing himself. Turnovers. Defense. No. 2 doesn’t regard Ahmad as much of a defender.
— A lot of one-pbad or even no-pbad shots so far. Defensive rotations aren’t great, either.
— Yeah, WVU can’t stop or catch up to the ball.
— Gordon triple-threats himself to the bench.
— Both teams have missed 9 of 10 shots. Buffalo leads 20-16.
— WVU is 1-for-7 from 2-point range and 4-for-13 from 3-point range. The Buffalo lead is only 22-18.
— Buffalo’s disintegrating. It sure seems like the Bulls can get a shot wherever they want inside the 3-point line, but they keep taking 3s. WVU has made five straight shots. Three are 3s. The lead is 31-26.
— It took WVU 12:18 to get 18 points. It’s matched that in the past 9:42.
— Buffalo lets Boldon get a screen and drive left. The lefty with the bad left hand maked a left-handed layup just before the buzzer. WVU leads 38-30 at the half and, we can agree, did not play well. But neither did the Bulls. But WVU started 5-for-20 and finished 8-for-10. Buffalo … did not.
Halftime
HALFTIME: (13) WVU 38, Buffalo 30
WVU needed 12:18 to score 18 points. Scored 20 points in the final 7:42 and made 8 of 10 shots to end the half. https://t.co/cMzPY6dXpE
— Mike Casazza (@mikecasazza) November 10, 2018
— Buffalo is 7-for-19 on dunks/layups. Why Buffalo has taken 17 3s is a mystery.
Second half
— WVU is the first to a 10-point lead. That’s ordinarily good enough to win a game. But last year wasn’t ordinary. Remember, 21-5 when leading by 10 and some stunning defeats in those five losses.
— WVU leads 49-36 at the under-16 timeout, and I’m not confident Buffalo gets back inside double figures again.
— Knapper, Haley, Ahmad, Harris and Konate is hard to pbad around or dribble through. That was sort of fun to watch.
— Buffalo’s Harris is a pretty good. He was 2-10/0-5 in the first half and seemed a bit sheepish in the second half — he hadn’t taken a shot, in fact. Out of the under-12 timeout, he scores off a set.
— Lamont West and-one in prompt fashion on the other end, and it’s 59-50.
— Every team has an answer for the other right now, but a Konate 3 (he’s 3-for-4) puts the lead back to double figures. It’s 68-56.
— Buffalo’s Harris loiters and hits a step in 3.
— Bolden has WVU’s last eight points — a layup, a 3 and three free throws — and the lead is 79-69 with 4:43 to go.
— Konate just caught a poorly shot ball a foot short of the rim. Official Joe DeRosa called it a goaltend … and it wasn’t even close.
— Konate was running in transition and fell down. No contact or anything. Gets up favoring his knee. He’s helped to the back.
— Well, Buffalo’s CJ Mbadinburg is on fire now. The Bulls are setting up, and he’s nailing down 3s. Back-to-back bombs cuts the lead to 81-79 with 2:55 to go.
— Mbadinburg: 9-18/7-13/6-6 for 31 points.
— Opponents to score 30 or more in the Coliseum in the Huggins years: USF’s Dominique Jones, DePaul’s Will Walker, Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins and Kentucky’s Kevin Knox.
— Bolden’s out. He hurt his knee on the last dead ball, and McCabe and Trey Doomes had to help him to the back.
— Ahmad makes two free throws and WVU gets a stop as Harler does well to stick with Mbadinburg and force a tough shot in traffic.
— Bolden was missed on the next possession. Knapper is in, and he misses a deep 3 as the shot clock nears zero.
— And Buffalo’s Harris missed everything on a wide-open 3. Good timeout for Buffalo called by WVU here. WVU leads 84-79 with 1:15 to go.
— Buffalo’s Harris hits a pump-and-drive layup over Konate, whose elevator seems to be down. Ahmad dribbles and loses the ball, and Buffalo gets possession in a scrum. It’s 84-81 with 31.8 seconds to go.
— WVU guards. Buffalo misses a 3 from a guy who was 1-5/0-2. I guess no one expected that? Deadball rebound to Buffalo, but we’ll go to the review.
— Mbadinburg hits about a 30-footer with 14.2 seconds to go. No one expected that.
— WVU tries to post up Konate. Knapper can’t trigger it. West misses a 3 at the buzzer. Overtime.
Overtime
— Ahmad with a pbad to where he though Konate would be. Ahmad has 10 points on 3-or-11 shooting to go with six turnovers and six rebounds. He has no rebounds this half.
— This is a meltdown without Bolden.
— Mbadinburg has nine 3s. Tamar Slay is the only other WVU opponent to do that.
— Fifth opponent to score 40 or more in Morgantown.
— Trey Doomes doesn’t get in but Traevon Horton does.
— WVU will fall to 0-1 in games it leads by 10 points or more.
— Nobody in the history of WVU basketball has ever done to the Mountaineers what Mbadinburg did: 43 points, 14 rebounds and nine 3s.
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