Ugly is ugly; Baylor belts WVU

In fact, the way the Mountaineers are playing, Estee Lauder couldn’t come up with enough lipstick, makeup or eye shadow to do anything to help.

For the second consecutive game, the Mountaineers were on the short end of a lopsided defeat, this time to Baylor by 87-69 before 12,783 fans in the Coliseum, about 10,000 of whom were long gone by the time the final accounting came in.

WVU has now lost to Oklahoma and Baylor by a combined 37 points, allowing the Sooners to shoot 61.4% and the Bears to shoot 54.9%.

And defense was supposed to be WVU’s strength.

In retrospect, shouldn’t be a surprise they lost to Baylor at home. They have played Baylor three times in the Coliseum and lost all three games … but nothing like this disaster in which they gave up 21 consecutive points before they could score their fourth point and that was it.

It was so ugly early that they had been called for four 3-second violations before they had scored four baskets.

Devin Williams distinguished himself coming back from missing the Oklahoma game with illness, putting together a double-double that included 20 points and 15 rebounds while Baylor’s mountain of a man, Rico Gathers, double-doubled also, scoring 17 with 16 rebounds.

The Mountaineers fall to 18-5 and 6-4, identical records to those now possessed by Baylor.

WVU is trying not to panic in the wake of recent developments.

“We’re going to be all right,” said Coach Bob Huggins.

“We’ve got to get back to the old us that we were in Puerto Rico,” added freshman Daxter Miles Jr., referring to the early season tournament in which they beat defending national champion Connecticut in the final.

That was a big win then but, if you look at the totality of their accomplishments to date, it’s highly possible that among their18 victories the only one against an NCAA Tournament team this year is a win over Oklahoma, one that was avenged by 19 points later.

Still, they believe they have what it takes.

“We have to get back to ourselves,” Williams said. “It’ll be all right. This happens, especially when you play in the best conference in the country. If we are going to be the best as a team, we have to figure it out.”

There’s a lot to figure out.

The first half turned into a Roadrunner cartoon with WVU playing the role of the Wile E. Coyote.

Every step, it seemed, was a cliff to step off of or a stick of dynamite to explode in the Mountaineers’ faces.

The game began on a high note, Williams scoring quickly inside and then the WVU pressure causing Baylor to call a time out.

The fans were pumped … and then ol’ Wile E. Coyote got this quizzical look on his face and … BOOM!

Baylor ran off 21 straight points.

TWENTY-ONE!

During that time the Mountaineers missed 11 consecutive shots while Baylor hit 7 of 9, four of them 3 point shots.

“They’re good now,” Huggins admitted. “Their two guards are good, they have a lot of guys who can make shots and they have the best rebounder in the country.”

That would be Gathers, who earlier this season pulled in 26 in one game leads the Big 12 in both rebounds and menacing glares and he used both to perfection here.

At one point he went up over and through Jonathan Holton, throwing a dunk down that shook the rafters. Then, as he walked away, having also been fouled, he glared at Holton with eyes that were straight out the handbook of villainous looks, raising his arms as if he had just won the heavyweight championship of the world.

WVU was turning Baylor over, as they do, forcing 12 in the first half and it was good thing because it got them 17 of the 13 points they would score.

The problem was that Baylor was turning them over, too, the final turnover count being 19 for Baylor and 16 for WVU.

“I’ve said from the beginning we have to turn people over but we can’t turn it over,” Huggins said. “When we win the turnovers are 19-8 of 20-7. That’s 13 or 14 more shots we get. We were outrebounded by eight today, too, and that’s more shots for them.”

It would have been a total disaster had not Carter gotten hot late in the half, banging home five of the team’s 10 first-half field goals including the only 3 3-point scores.

Somehow, in game like this one, the home team normally finds a way to make one run but Baylor wasn’t about to allow that to happen. The Bears were doing everything right and 30 minutes into the game the Mountaineers had finally reached Baylor’s halftime total.

And it kept getting worse, the lead lingering between 16 and 20 points even though Williams was doing everything within his power to bring WVU back.

The powerful center from Cincinnati went double-double early in the second half and continued to build on it, looking as though he had a chance to go 20-20 with still 7 minutes to play.

Then even he threw in the towel, throwing up a throwaway 3 that was an air ball, buying him a ticket to the bench.

Moments later, as evidence of a travesty the game had become, WVU down 76-52, reserve Chase Connor fouled out for WVU.

Nothing more need be said about it.

Follow Bob Hertzel on Twitter @bhertzel