HOUSTON — — J’Wan Roberts scored a season-high 22 points, L.J. Cryer added 18 and No. 10 Houston beat West Virginia 70-54 on Wednesday night for its ninth straight win.

Roberts had 17 points in the first half on 8-of-10 shooting. Emanuel Sharp, who finished with 14 points, added 12 as Houston took a 40-27 lead into halftime.

Houston (13-3, 5-0 Big 12) shot 49% overall and was 11 of 26 on 3-pointers in winning its 32nd straight home game.

Amani Hansberry scored 16 points and Javon Small added 13 points and eight assists for West Virginia (12-4, 3-2). The Mountaineers shot 44% and were 9 of 22 on 3-pointers.

After trailing 18-13, Houston used a 20-3 run to open a 12-point lead on Roberts’ hook shot with 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the first half.

Takeaways

West Virginia: Small, who leads the Big 12 in scoring with 19.8 points per game, started 3 for 4 from the field — including three 3-pointers in the first six minutes as the Mountaineers built a five-point lead. But he went 1 for 7 the rest of the way and was scoreless in the second half as Houston pressured him.

Houston: The Cougars improved to 1/3 in Quad 1 games this season. Houston could have at least another 10 opportunities for Quad 1 wins over its final 15 regular-season games.

Key moment

West Virginia used a 12-2 run to cut Houston’s lead to 51-48, but the Cougars responded with a 14-0 spurt that started with a putback dunk by Ja’Vier Francis. The spree was capped by a 3 from Milos Uzan to give Houston a 17-point lead with seven minutes left.

Key stat

The Cougars forced 12 turnovers and converted them into 25 points.

Up next

Houston visits Central Florida on Saturday, and West Virginia hosts No. 2 Iowa State the same day.

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Senior guard Javon Small has been so consistently good this season that it’s almost easy to not fully appreciate what he’s doing on the floor.

Small has made the special, ordinary this season in his first year with the Mountaineers, and the latest example of that came in the win over No. 2 Iowa State. Small finished with 27 points on 9-16 from the field with 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals to help engineer the upset.

And that’s against an Iowa State team that features a tough challenge with their perimeter defense.

“He’s been just incredible all year. I think he’s the best guard in the country right now. For what we’re asking him to do and the way he put the team on his back there late,” he said.

Small is the primary focus of every opponent that West Virginia has gone against since Tucker DeVries went down with an upper-body injury eight games into the season and he continues to deliver. He continues to play a ton of minutes in the process and has still been able to make plays despite all of the attention that he has received from the opposition.

Against Iowa State, Small took over down the stretch scoring 12 of the final 13 points and doing it in a variety of ways by either hitting a key three-pointer or getting to the rim or the foul line.

Speaking to his mindset, Small wasn’t even aware that he reeled off that feat.

“Since day one I’ve always tried to do what I can for my team to win and if it takes me to score 12 of the last 13 points that’s what I’m going to do,” Small said.

That wasn’t a directive from the coaching staff, Small just got into a zone and took the game over. It’s something DeVries has seen Small do in practice and when he gets there it’s tough to stop him.

“He’s certainly special and I hope people certainly enjoy the time they get to watch him here,” he said.

But the most impressive thing about Small is the fact that the only thing that matters to him is getting the win. Even though he’s stuffing the stat sheet, he doesn’t care about anything but how he can help his team accomplish the goal of winning basketball games.

“All I’m thinking about is just winning,” he said.

With his numbers, Small has positioned himself in the race for Big 12 Player of the Year considering that he’s averaging 19.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists and playing over 36 minutes per game. But he’s focused on what matters the most to him and his teammates.

“What I love about him is he doesn’t care about winning that award. He wants to win and that’s all he talks about. That’s all he talks about with his teammates is being better in areas we need to win. He’s never come into a timeout asking for the ball not one time,” DeVries said.

And if he continues to play like this, Small could not only continue to lead his team to wins but might just receive some recognition for his efforts as well.

“I don’t ever think about it. The only thing I’m worried about is winning at the end of the day. You can only win Big 12 Player of the Year if you win,” Small said.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Winners of their last eleven games inside the Coliseum, the WVU women’s basketball team will step onto their biggest broadcast stage during the regular season Sunday afternoon. The No. 20 Mountaineers (14-3, 4-2 Big 12) will host Iowa State at 1 p.m. in a game that will be broadcast by FOX.

“We have five national TV games and this is one of those. I would love to let everybody see what they have here, what it looks like and put the environment on TV. Obviously, we need to do our part against a quality, quality, really good basketball team and one of the best coaches [Bill Fennelly] in the country who I have a ton of respect for,” said WVU head coach Mark Kellogg.

“It will be huge. We feed off it. We’ve had a great home identity for a couple years, a year and a half since I have been here. For the most part, we’ve had great crowds all year long. Hopefully we will have the best one of the season.”

“It is everything,” said WVU senior forward Kylee Blacksten. “We absolutely love our fans. It is going to mean so much to be able to kind of reach even more audiences and show them everything we can do.”

The Mountaineers are coming off a 73-46 win over Colorado on Wednesday night at the Coliseum. West Virginia and Iowa State are in a tie for fourth-place in the Big 12 through six of 18 league games. WVU is 12th in the latest NCAA NET ratings.

Iowa State (13-6, 4-2 Big 12) opened the season ranked No. 8 in the AP preseason poll. However, non-conference losses to Final Four teams UConn, Iowa and South Carolina represent half of their six losses.

The Cyclones are led by sophomore center and Preseason All-Big 12 selection Audi Crooks. She leads the Big 12 in scoring at 22.6 points per game. She is also tops on ISU in rebounding (7.7)

“I think teams have tried probably everything from doubles to fronts to play-behinds to different types of size. She’s a matchup problem every night probably against about every team in the country. I think when you play teams like this, there is some sort of ‘pick your poison’ approach to it. You don’t want to give up anything necessarily. But what are you willing to maybe give up a hair or sacrifice? We’ll continue to work through that,” Kellogg said.

“We’re deeper there. We’re in a better position. There’s more bodies. There’s a little bit more size to throw at her. It is resistance and different looks and different personnel to try to slow her down. You are not going to stop her. She is going to get points.”

Senior guard Emily Ryan is Iowa State’s all-time assist leader and she is averaging 6.4 assists per game this season.

“She is a veteran. She has been around. She keeps her cool. She is very level-headed. She’s a fantastic passer, obviously,” Kellogg said.

6-foot-2 sophomore forward Addy Brown is second on the Cyclones in points per game (13.8) and rebounds per game (7.5).

“I just think Brown is an unbelievably good basketball player. Her mind, her IQ, she is very, very skilled. She scores at every level and she plays off of Audi really well,” Kellogg said.

WVU senior guard JJ Quinerly (1,659 points) needs seven points to pass Meg Bulger for eighth place on WVU’s all-time scoring list.