No. 21 West Virginia seemed to be on the ropes against Colorado on Sunday.

The Mountaineers’ 14-point lead dwindled to a single possession for most of the back-half of the second half. That’s until Joe Yesufu was able to come in clutch, scoring 18 total points as WVU earned their third Big 12 win of the year.

“We went to him a little bit. They were doing a nice job on Javon in the second half so we wanted to put the ball in Joe’s hands a little bit more, he does have great speed,” West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries said.

Eight of Yesufu’s 18 points came in the final 4:44 of the game, as he was able to get to the rim and be the main facilitator of the Mountaineer offense.

“At that point in the game, that’s what we needed. We needed somebody that could get downhill and get to the rim a little bit more,” DeVries said.

The Mountaineers not only played at altitude on the road, but they were still shorthanded as they dealt with injuries across the board.

Yesufu was able to come off the bench, scoring the most points he’s scored in a game since the 2020-2021 season.

“We’re a little shorthanded so we do get fatigued sometimes in the second half. I thought Tad did a really good job, he played a lot of guys. They had fresh bodies kept coming at us. We just don’t have the amount of bodies we needed to sub and then we got into a little foul trouble on top of it. We did get worn out a little bit but had just enough,” DeVries said.

WVU went on an 8-0 run from the 1:23 mark until there were 31 seconds to play. Yesufu was an integral part to start that, as he was able to get an and-one layup, before making the free throw.

“That’s where I thought Joe’s maybe a little more fresh than the other guys was maybe kind of able to will us to the last finish line there,” DeVries said.

Associated Press

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Javon Small scored 26 points and Joseph Yesufu added 18 as No. 21 West Virginia held off Colorado 78-70 on Sunday in the teams’ first meeting as members of the Big 12 Conference.

The Mountaineers (12-3, 3-1 Big 12) overcame foul trouble and used a late 13-4 run to thwart Colorado, which had cut the deficit to two points with 5:28 left. Yesufu had eight points in that spurt.

Julian Hammond III had 23 points and Assane Diop added 13 for Colorado (9-6, 0-4), which lost its fourth straight game.

Colorado trailed by three and West Virginia had just lost two starters to fouls when the Mountaineers beat the press and started a fast break that ended on Yesufu’s layup and free throw for a 71-65 lead with 1:23 left.

Takeaways

West Virginia: Three straight 3-pointers by Small, the Big 12’s leading scorer and reigning player of the week, gave West Virginia its biggest lead, 49-35, with 17:28 remaining.

Colorado: The Buffaloes, who entered the game with the worst turnover margin in the Big 12, had 14 turnovers in the game.

Key moment

Before the contest, Colorado held a moment of silence to honor longtime Buffaloes head football coach Bill McCartney, who died Friday at age 84.

Key Stat

Colorado is now 2-2 against ranked teams this season. West Virginia rebounded from its unexpected home loss to Arizona that snapped a seven-game winning streak.

Up next

Both teams play Wednesday. Colorado hosts Cincinnati and West Virginia is at Houston.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on AP Top 25 basketball throughout the season. Sign up here. AP men’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25 -college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/mens-college-basketball

Virginia Tech transfer Jalen Stroman adds to deep Notre Dame safety corps

Related Content