March 3, 2015: KU’s streak goes to 11 after furious comeback against West Virginia

Frank Mason stuck his thumbs in his jersey and popped the white mesh turned toward the student section. Wayne Selden jumped in the air and hugged Kelly Oubre. Moments later, the party was starting, this crazy, improbable party after a comeback for the history books at Allen Fieldhouse on Tuesday night.

The Jayhawks trailed by 18 points in the first half. It did not matter. They trailed by eight points with 2:32 remaining. It did not matter. Kansas was not losing to West Virginia on Tuesday, clinching the outright Big 12 title with an 76-69 overtime victory.

This was the image from an 11th straight title. The Jayhawks looked dead, playing the entire second half without leading scorer Perry Ellis, who left because of what was determined to be a sprained knee and won’t play Saturday against Oklahoma. Then, suddenly, they were alive, celebrating a title on the Allen Fieldhouse floor.

Let’s take a breath. How did this happen?

“Wow,” Kansas coach Bill Self said, grabbing a microphone on the floor after the game. “Are you guys tired?”

The Jayhawks entered Tuesday night with a 23-game winning streak inside Allen Fieldhouse. Still alive. The program had notched 32 straight victories on senior night, a stretch that perhaps defied logic as much as the streak of 11 straight titles. Still alive. Self had lost just nine times in this building in his 12 seasons. Still just nine.

In overtime, the key moment came when Jamari Traylor finished an emphatic one-handed slam over a defender with 3 minutes left, giving the Jayhawks a 67-65 lead. Mason pumped his fist. Selden screamed. And the Jayhawks extended the lead to 70-66 on a Mason layup with 1:25 left.

For more than 40 minutes, Mason worked and battled like a heavyweight fighter, finishing with 19 points. He took on West Virginia’s hard-nosed pressure and found an extra gear in overtime. Yes, this is what this felt like — a 12-round prize fight.

Moments later, Mason made two free throws and stretched the lead to 72-66 with 44 seconds left. West Virginia’s Daxter Miles Jr. answered with another three, but the Jayhawks made enough plays — and free throws — to salvage a victory on a night that was supposed to be a coronation.

The Jayhawks did not make a three-pointer in the game. It did not matter. By the end, nothing seemed to matter — except for a deafening Allen Fieldhouse and a Kansas team that kept making free throws and taking advantage of opportunities.

KU had stayed alive with an eight-point comeback in the final 2:32 of regulation. After cutting the lead to two, the Jayhawks ran Chop — their patented late-game curl play — and freshman guard Devonté Graham drew a foul.

Graham drilled both free throws, West Virginia failed to convert in the final seconds, and Allen Fieldhouse erupted as the Jayhawks survived into overtime.

Weird things were happening. Then again, weird things tend to happen here.

With the West Virginia lead at 57-49, the Jayhawks had fought, clawed and scratched back to within 57-55 on a layup by Mason with 44.4 seconds left.

The Jayhawks fouled West Virginia’s Devin Williams with close to 40 seconds left. Williams missed the front end of a one-and-one, but West Virginia grabbed the rebound. The Jayhawks fouled again, and the Mountaineers made one of two, leading to another layup from Mason on the other end.

Just like that, the Mountaineers’ lead was 58-57 with 21 seconds left. The Jayhawks fouled Jevon Carter with 18 seconds left, and he converted just one of two. That set the stage for the final minutes of regulation.

By early in the second half, Kansas had turned into a MASH unit. Ellis was nowhere to be seen, never returning to the court after halftime. Selden, meanwhile, turned his ankle and headed to the locker room under his own power. The Jayhawks were already down freshman forward Cliff Alexander.

If the Jayhawks were going to come back from 10 down in the final 10 minutes minutes, they would need to do so without their leading scorer and with Selden nursing an ankle tweak.

They would do so with little-used junior forward Hunter Mickelson playing major minutes, and Landen Lucas and Traylor battling to keep West Virginia’s rebounders off the glass. They would do so with Oubre relegated to the bench with three fouls for parts of the second half - and eventually fouling out.

Of course, they did.

The Jayhawks trailed 40-24 at halftime on Tuesday night, leaving Allen Fieldhouse momentarily stunned as West Virginia exerted its will on the boards. The Mountaineers outrebounded Kansas 26-11 and built an 18-point lead in the minutes before halftime. Fewer than 24 hours after Kansas clinched a share of the Big 12 title, the fans had shown up for a party — a senior-night coronation and an opportunity to win the title outright. This was not that.

If the first-half score was surprising, it was made even more shocking by the fact that West Virginia was playing without leading scorer Juwan Staten, the preseason Big 12 player of the year, and senior guard Gary Browne. Both were injured, confined to the bench in sweats.

For the second straight game, Alexander sat out while the NCAA investigated an eligibility issue. One day earlier, Self had expressed hope that the issue could be resolved by the end of the week. But considering the glacial pace of the NCAA’s enforcement wing, it was all but certain that Alexander would miss Tuesday’s game.

Like everything else, it did not matter.

On Tuesday night at Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks cut the nets down in the moments after the game. The party was on — somehow.

This story was originally published March 4, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "March 3, 2015: KU’s streak goes to 11 after furious comeback against West Virginia."