West Virginia

West Virginia overcomes uncanny odds to upset No. 7 Kansas in men's basketball

Published

1 year ago

December 31, 2024

West Virginia overcomes uncanny odds to upset No. 7 Kansas in men's basketball

Well, that’s one way to bring in the new year.

Let’s begin with why what happened in Lawrence Tuesday wasn’t supposed to happen. This was West Virginia’s 12th trip to Allen Fieldhouse. The Mountaineers had lost the first 11.

This was the conference opener for Kansas. The Jayhawks had won 33 in a row, dating back to the elder George Bush administration.

Kansas was 7-0 at home this season. West Virginia’s only true road game had been to Pittsburgh. The Mountaineers lost by 24 points.

West Virginia’s second-leading scorer Tucker DeVries? Couldn’t play. Injured.

West Virginia’s third-leading scorer and top rebounder Amani Hansberry? Out. Bad ankle.

The rankings? Kansas No. 7, West Virginia down in the also-received-votes section.

RANKINGS: AP Top 25 Poll | Power 37 rankings | NET rankings

The Mountaineers’ flight to Lawrence? Delayed, so they didn’t get in until the wee hours of Tuesday. It was almost 2025 in New Zealand by then.

The team hotel? Lost power Tuesday morning.

The ability to put the ball where inventor of the game and former Kansas coach Dr. James Naismith always intended — right in the ol’ peach basket? Kansas was 22nd in the nation in field goal percentage. West Virginia was 231st.

Yep, sounded like it should be Jayhawks all the way. But then the game started.

By the 15-minute mark, West Virginia had nine points and Kansas hadn’t scored yet. By halftime, the Mountaineers’ lead was 13. With 18 minutes left, it was 18.

No, the Jayhawks would not be blown away in their own hallowed building. College basketball hasn’t gone that crazy. Kansas finally pulled even at 61-61 with 15 seconds left on a conventional 3-point play by Zeke Mayo. When all else fails against West Virginia, the Jayhawks always have the foul line. In 2018, Kansas beat the Mountaineers 77-69 in Lawrence with a 35-2 gap in free throw attempts. When Mayo hit the free throw to get his team even Tuesday, the scoring differential from the line was 19-3.

Forced into overtime after leading for 38 minutes and 35 seconds would be debilitating and deadly for West Virginia, right? No one will ever know. Javon Small faked Kansas freshman Flory Bidunga into the air and drew a foul with 1.8 seconds left. Small missed the first free throw — might as well squeeze all possible drama out of the moment — but then hit the second. It ended 62-61, the Mountaineers beat the Jayhawks in Allen Fieldhouse with a free throw. A good many West Virginia faithful would appreciate the irony in that.

So Kansas is 0-1 in conference play. The last time that could be said was January of 1991 when the Jayhawks lost to Oklahoma. The league was called the Big Eight then, the winning coach for the Sooners was Billy Tubbs, and the losing coach in only his third season with the Jayhawks was Roy Williams. Current Kansas coach Bill Self was an assistant at Oklahoma State and current West Virginia coach Darian DeVries was in high school and too young to drive. It was the same year the Buffalo Bills took their first Super Bowl loss, Michael Jordan won his first NBA title, the Atlanta Braves played in their first World Series and Mike Krzyzewski became a first-time national champion.

In other words, West Virginia overturned a lot of history Tuesday, no matter how many obstacles were in the way.

“I’m incredibly proud of the guys, especially with the circumstances — the injuries and the travel,” DeVries said. “Like we always talk about, there are no excuses in our program; we are going to line up and go compete.”

The Mountaineers had already proven that at the Battle 4 Atlantis when they played three overtime games in three days, shocking Gonzaga and Arizona and losing to Louisville. This latest turn puts their record at 10-2. Now would be a good time to mention West Virginia was 9-23 last season, so the Mountaineers topped that win total before the ball dropped in Times Square.

Self and the Jayhawks could ponder several malfunctions. The team that normally shoots so well hit only 38.8 percent. Take away Mayo, Hunter Dickinson and Dajuan Harris Jr. and the rest of the Kansas team provided only 11 points. Self is still trying to find the right pieces to fit around his stars. The defense never rattled West Virginia, forcing only six turnovers and blocking no shots. The offense had only 10 assists. It all left the Jayhawks 9-3, which is hardly awful, but Kansas hasn’t started that slowly since 2013-14. And this makes three losses in the past five games.

SOON: Questions that need answering as 2025, and conference play, enter the fold

Bottom line in Lawrence: A lousy way to send out 2024.

“Well, I doubt there’ll be people at 11:59 doing any countdowns tonight,” Self said. “So yeah, we’re down. We’ll bounce back, but we’re down. And certainly the league’s a monster and in order to play this league, you need to hold serve at home and we obviously didn’t accomplish that. So we just need to continue to grind and stick together and we’ll get better.

“But, the reality of it is we’re not the team that I think a lot of us thought we would be on January 1. We got a good team, but we can obviously be beat, and today, we were by a team that was better than us. They played smart, they controlled tempo. They did a really nice job. And we got to understand something — every game in our league will be similar to that. It’ll be a rock fight.”

Also every so often, maybe the gods of basketball just look at what is supposed to on happen paper and turn the game upside down. They like to have their fun on New Year’s Eve, too.

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West Virginia

West Virginia Lottery results: See winning numbers for Mega Millions, Daily 3 on March 6, 2026

Published

6 hours ago

March 7, 2026

Press Room

The results are in for the West Virginia Lottery’s draw games on Friday, March 6, 2026.

Here’s a look at winning numbers for each game on March 6.

Winning Mega Millions numbers from March 6 drawing

08-19-26-38-42, Mega Ball: 24

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Daily 3 numbers from March 6 drawing

9-9-6

Check Daily 3 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Daily 4 numbers from March 6 drawing

6-9-5-6

Check Daily 4 payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Cash 25 numbers from March 6 drawing

05-13-16-19-23-25

Check Cash 25 payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

When are the West Virginia Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 11 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 10:59 p.m. ET Tuesday and Friday.
Lotto America: 10:15 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Daily 3, 4: 6:59 p.m. ET Monday through Saturday.
Cash 25: 6:59 p.m. ET Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a USA Today editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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West Virginia

DNR Releases total deer whitetail numbers for 2025, down significantly from 2024 – WV MetroNews

Published

18 hours ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

DNR Releases total deer whitetail numbers for 2025, down significantly from 2024 – WV MetroNews

DNR PRESS RELEASE

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WVDNR) today announced that hunters harvested 92,553 white-tailed deer during the 2025-2026 seasons, which is a 17 percent decrease from the 2024 deer harvest of 111,646 and 14 percent below the 5-year average of 107,434.

This year’s decreased harvest was caused by an increase in hard mast production, which often results in decreased harvests due to the difficulty of tracking and targeting game species spread out over a landscape. Several counties also experienced an outbreak of hemorrhagic disease, which likely impacted hunter success, especially in the western part of the state.

According to preliminary numbers collected through the WVDNR’s electronic game checking system, hunters harvested 33,823 bucks during the traditional buck firearm season, 25,453 antlerless deer during all antlerless firearm hunting opportunities, 29,654 deer during the urban and regular archery/crossbow seasons, 3,102 deer during the muzzleloader season and 501 deer during the Mountaineer Heritage season.

Click here to download county-by-county 2025-2026 deer harvest numbers.

Antlerless Deer Season
Hunters harvested 25,453 deer during the 2025 antlerless deer season, which includes the youth, class Q and Class XS deer season. The harvest was a 23 percent decrease compared to the 2024 harvest of 33,057 and 13 percent below the 5-year average of 29,303. The top ten counties for antlerless deer harvests were Preston (1,442), Upshur (907), Greenbrier (877), Monroe (876), Mason (841), Lewis (836), Hardy (775), Randolph (774), Barbour (695) and Braxton (680).

Archery and Crossbow Deer Seasons
Hunters harvested 29,654 deer during the 2025 archery and crossbow season. The 2025 harvest was an 8 percent decrease over the 2024 harvest of 32,240 and 5 percent below the 5-year average of 31,139. The proportion of the archery harvest taken using a crossbow has stabilized and was greater than deer reportedly taken by a bow.

The archery and crossbow harvest does not include the 29 deer taken with recurve or longbows during the Mountaineer Heritage season. The top ten counties for archery and crossbow deer harvests were Preston (1,573), Raleigh (1,378), Wyoming (1,224), Kanawha (1,045), Fayette (1,032), Mercer (892), Nicholas (889), McDowell (876), Randolph (860) and Monongalia (842).

Muzzleloader Deer Season
Hunters harvested 3,102 deer during the 2025 muzzleloader season, which was 26 percent less than the 2024 harvest of 4,173 and 22 percent below the 5-year average of 3,979. The muzzleloader deer season harvest does not include the 472 deer taken with side lock and flintlock muzzleloaders during the Mountaineer Heritage season. The top ten counties for muzzleloader deer harvests were Nicholas (186), Preston (179), Randolph (158), Greenbrier (131), Upshur (115), Fayette (111), Raleigh (95), Mason (93), Barbour (90) and Kanawha (88).

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West Virginia

University, Ripley out to early leads at state wrestling – WV MetroNews

Published

1 day ago

March 6, 2026

Press Room

University, Ripley out to early leads at state wrestling – WV MetroNews

— Story by David Walsh, Photo gallery by Will Wotring

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Divisions I and II are going as expected after Thursday night’s opening round in the 78^th West Virginia High School State Wrestling Tournament at Mountain Health Network Arena. University, seeking a third straight large school title, and Parkersburg found themselves in the top two in the standings on a night dominated by pins as No. 1 seeds would beat up on No. 4 seeds.

University started the event minus two competitors. One did not make weight and the other, who won a state title a year ago, is not competing as he’s recovering from a football injury.

One competitor delivering big for the Hawks is Maximus Fortier, a junior who transferred in from Fairmont Senior. While there, he won the state title as a freshman at 144 with a final record of 41-1. He competes at 165 now and is 36-2 after winning with a first-round pin Thursday night.

“Come down, support the team and try to win,” Fortier said of his battle plan. “Wrestle the way we know how.”

Fortier and the Hawks won the Ron Mauck OVAC title, the WSAZ Invitational and West Virginia Duals during the season. He competed in two major tournaments as well. He went 2-2 in the Ironman and won his weight class in the Powerade Tournament which attracts the top teams in the nation.

“Wasn’t ready,” he said about the Ironman. “Did my thing at Powerade. It was big.”

Fortier said support at his new school grows every day.

“They treat me like family,” he said.

Strategy for the State Tournament is simple.

“Wrestle the way we know how to wrestle,” Fortier said.

University capitalized on a strong finish in the heavier weights and leads with 47 points. Parkersburg, which finished second here last year, trails with 39.5. Cabell Midland is third with 37.5 and Huntington fourth with 32.5.

Ripley is in year two in Division II. The Vikings placed sixth a year ago. They came to town as the Region 4 winner and qualified 11 with nine taking first and the other two second. Ripley leads after Thursday with 38 points thanks to wins by pin or major fall. Independence is second with 27 and Keyser third with 25.5. Cameron is the leader in Division III with 16 points.

The tournament continues Friday with sessions at 11:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, the girls have their state with action starting at 8 a.m. The boys begin at 10:30.

Championship finals are Saturday night at 6:30. Wrestlers are now seeded prior to the tournament and the pill breaks deadlocks.

During the season, Ripley won the West Virginia Duals, beat Herbert Hoover twice, Point Pleasant and also got wins over Parkersburg South and Huntington.

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