Last 4 minutes and especially commentary about the zone, starting score 51-48 us:
- Hawkins gets called for a ridiculous touch foul at half court that they get sent to the line for. Hawkins had one forearm on the guy for 1/4 second. They did that all game. Stupid anticipatory call by ref. They make 1 FT, get a long offensive rebound off a brick FT. Cole strips Sherman but he gets it back and makes a tough finish. 51-51.
- Gaffney gets tripped and they call out of bounds on us.
- Akok is fronting and they make a decent lob over top and we foul. They make 1/2. 51-52.
- WVU half court trap/ 1-3-1. Kick ball off them. Next possession Jackson makes a great skip pass over the zone. Akok wide open from 3. He pump fakes. Has Gaffney wide open from 3. Drives to his right for some reason, then finds Gaffney who has moved in to help. Gaffney attacks middle of the zone, gets ganged up by 3 guys. Threat of pass to Whaley draws 4th defender in. Gaffney makes good read and passes to wiiiide open Jackson with 2 seconds left on shot clock, but pass is a little low and Jackson is standing on 3pt line instead of behind it. He doesn't shoot immediately, instead goes directly to dribbling. Doesn't realize shot clock and we get a violation. We had 1 somewhat open and 1 wide open shot. This was just an awful, awful play by Jackson in a 1 point game with 2.5 minutes left.
- Good D by Cole to cut off baseline. Jackson gets caught a little flat-footed. His man gets space and finds a mildly contested guy for 3. He misses, Akok is behind his guy but several feet from the basket. As they come in to the area, Hawkins just moves out of the way and doesn't box out. Their guy is in best rebounding position, but Akok scraps and knocks away and we get the rebound.
- Jackson gets the rebound, goes coast to coast, a spin move at half court. WVU is back in man to man. Drives into the paint, puts his back to basket, offers the ball directly to WVU, but manage to get a pass off. Cole jacks up a contested, pull up 3 with 19 seconds left instead of running offense. WVU calls timeout, 2 minutes left.
- Jackson nice d, walls up inside without fouling. But then his man gets the ball back and he's in his grill 25 feet from the hoop and gets blown by. Akok saves the day with block at the rim.
- Timeout UConn with 1.5 minutes left. WVU back in zone. Another kick ball. 20 seconds. Some trapping, nice cut by Cole but good D by WVU to block him and then recover to Whaley after the pass out. Whaley slips a screen and they double Hawkins, just like we've seen before with Sanogo. Hawkins doesn't or can't due to trap find Whaley on the roll. Now less than 5 seconds and Hawkins has to jack up a 3. Good defense. We get a tip oreb and miss, then another oreb (punishing the zone), Cole gets an absolutely wide open 3 kickout, great rhythm, in-and-out. Jackson oreb, blocked (probably fouled). Polley oreb, hoists a 3 immediately. They finally rebound. 5 shots on 1 possession while down 1 with a minute left - 2 shots at the rim and 3 missed 3's (1 wide open, 1 semi-open, 1 contested). Still 51-52.
- Sherman draws a foul on Hawkins. Just a half step beat and Sherman is good at drawing fouls. Makes first, Misses 2nd 51-53, Akok doesn't box out and just goes up for rebound with position but instead ball takes extra bounce on rim, guy swoops in and is first to ball in the air. We have to foul. McNeil makes both 51-55.
- Polley puts up a quick corner 3 after a quick push, miss. Tip, miss. Whaley 2nd tip in. 53-55.
- We press, they get ball in to McNeil on textbook press break. He makes 1/2, 53-56.
- We have a shot, but out of timeouts. Cole gets a pretty good look, sudden stop probably draws a foul as defender hits him in body in the air, but they'd never call with 1 second left (but would in other times in game).
Not a lot to criticize on coaching. Couple bonehead Jackson plays, Cole missed three 3's, got the bad end of the whistle on the road, Akok didn't box out, and then we either didn't take or missed 5 open shots on the 2 zone possessions. In general had an open shot on every possession except the one Cole played hero ball.
