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MORGANTOWN -- Like Neal Brown's football team, Josh Eilert's West Virginia basketball team trusted the climb they took all night long against Ohio State and almost pulled off a miracle.
Unfortunately, they could not trust the officiating crew that called the game at the Rocket Mortgage Arena in Cleveland..
The Buckeyes, aided by a clearly blown foul call on a RaeQuan Battle 3-point shot in overtime, survived, 78-75, in an intense, entertaining two and a half hours of intrigue, strategy and a display of great intestinal fortitude by the Mountaineers.
"We got a lot of heart," Eilert said. "They will keep on battling. We've got all these challenges; we're playing without a center. We're trying to do all we can to manage that while we wait for Jesse to heal up, but they are not going to quit. That's the way our staff is, that's the way our program is going to be run."
The Mountaineers led only once in the game, that by 3-0 when Battle opened the scoring for the evening with a 3, then never led again as Ohio State physically bullied them through most of the first half, especially on the boards.
The Buckeyes built a 14-point lead eight minutes into the game and seemed ready to cruise to an easy win, but WVU switched to a 2-3 zone from man-to-man and Ohio State looked like it never had seen such a thing.
"The zone bothered them. We knew it would. It was a great game plan. Down the stretch it was a game of inches and you have to get something to go your way," Eilert said.
"It shouldn't be this way but it seemed out of the 2-3 zone we rebounded better than out of man. That helped things."
Down eight boards at the half, WVU finished with just one fewer rebund than the Buckeyes.
"We battled," Eilert said. "Early in the first half I was worried about the way we were rebounding and I challenged the man-to-man to fix it and they certainly took on that challenge and fixed it."
With Noah Farrakhan going crazy on the offensive end; with Battle despite foul trouble that kept him on the bench for 13 minutes of the first half, with Pat Suemnick making a number of key baskets down the stretch, the Mountaineers sent it into overtime.
But in that final five minutes, the Buckeyes were sniping from 3-point depth, hitting three quick ones and then there was the officials' gag job as Battle went up for a 3 with WVU down 5 in overtime, everything seemed to come apart for both teams.
WVU's Eilert earned himself a technical but Ohio State missed both free throws, then missed two more free throws, and WVU missed a key free throw by Kerr Kriisa in the closing seconds as its final chance.
"I was 3-foot from it. I'm pretty clear what I saw. I'm a pretty mild=mannered guy. If I see the fact he fouled and it definitely affected his shot, he should be at the line for 3. That changes the game; that changes the nature of the game. It's a shame. I hate to put our team at a disadvantage, but he missed both free throws and we jumped back in and had a chance down the stretch regardless of the situation," Eilert said.
Rarely, in a key, emotional non-conference game are so many heroes gathered on the losing team, but you could name almost everyone on the WVU roster for their performance after the comeback was launched.
Battle, who played only 7 minutes in the first half, finished not only with 24 points to go with the two 29-point efforts he put forth in his first two games after being cleared to play and came to life on the boards, grabbing off 10 rebounds as the Mountaineers cut into the huge advantage the Buckeyes had built.
Noah Farrakhan not only shot WVU back into the game in the first half, but kept them falling out of it. He finished with 19 points while Suemnick had 9 with four for four shooting, most of it when most needed.