KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ The same Kansas men's basketball team that failed to win the Big 12 Conference regular-season title for the first time in 15 seasons will be playing for the league tournament championship trophy on Saturday.
The No. 17-ranked, No. 3-seed Jayhawks (25-8) positioned themselves for possible net-cutting and ring-fitting ceremonies by downing No. 10-seed West Virginia 88-74 in Friday night's Big 12 tournament semifinals at the Sprint Center.
Freshman guard Quentin Grimes scored 16 points the first half off 5 of 5 3-point shooting and finished with 18 points and a career-high eight rebounds for the Jayhawks, who will take on Iowa State in Saturday's 5 p.m. final. The No. 5-seed Cyclones defeated No. 1-seed Kansas State 63-59 in Friday's other semifinal.
Dedric Lawson contributed 24 points and eight rebounds for KU, which ended the postseason hopes of Bob Huggins' Mountaineers. West Virginia (14-20) defeated Oklahoma in a first-round game Wednesday then shocked No. 2-seed Texas Tech in Thursday's quarterfinal.
Saturday's final is a rematch of the 2015 title game, when Iowa State downed the Jayhawks 70-66.
Grimes, a 6-foot-5 freshman from The Woodlands, Texas, hit six of 13 shots (5 of 8 from 3) Friday. His five 3s were one off a career high (set versus Michigan State in the season opener) but surpassed his previous high of four 3s made in a Big 12 game (versus Oklahoma State). He also had four assists in 31 minutes.
Grimes fell to the court with 6:04 left, suffering an apparent leg cramp after missing a 3.
After being helped to the bench, he immediately was provided liquids by KU's trainer. He was smiling on the bench when Coach Bill Self went to check on him at the 5:14 mark.
KU's Devon Dotson had 13 points (11 in the first half), six rebounds and five assists; Marcus Garrett had 11 points and five rebounds; Mitch Lightfoot blocked four shots; and David McCormack had seven points and eight rebounds. Ochai Agbaji had nine points.
Lamont West had 16 points and Derek Culver 14 for WVU.
KU started slowly on Friday, trailing 8-3, 22-17 and 27-21 (with 8:01 left in the half). But by halftime, KU led 48-40 thanks to a Grimes-led 16-4 run that turned a 36-32 deficit into a 48-40 lead.
Grimes scored 10 of the 16 points, including four off a four-point play. He hit a 3 and, after getting fouled, sank a free throw to give KU a 38-36 lead. Grimes, who hit a 3 to beat the halftime buzzer and leaped for joy with Charlie Moore as the team headed to the locker room, in one half surpassed his high in 3s in an entire Big 12 game.
The 6-foot-5 Grimes hit four 3s on March 2 at Oklahoma State. Grimes hit six 3s in the season opener versus Michigan State. Grimes also had four rebounds, two assists and two steals while playing 19 minutes in the first half Friday.
Dotson hit five free throws (KU was 10 of 10 from the line the first half to WVU's 3 of 9) and scored 11 points with three assists. Dedric Lawson had nine points and four rebounds. WVU was led by Lamont West, who had nine points in the half.
West Virginia outscored KU 7-0 to grab a 22-17 lead at the 10:41 mark. The Mountaineers led 27-21 at 8:01 and 30-23 at 5:59. KU used a 7-2 run to slice the gap to 32-30 at the 4:11 mark. Garrett had two of his eight first-half points in the run, while Grimes had a three and McCormack a bucket.
Down 36-32, KU completely outplayed West Virginia the rest of the half and led by eight at the break. KU hit 50 percent of its first-half shots, including six of 10 from 3-point range. WVU hit 51.6 percent and was 5 of 13 from three-point range.
KU opened the second half with a 16-6 run and led 64-46 at 14:22. Lawson had nine points in the surge.
In an interesting storyline involving the Mountaineers, NBA prospect Sagaba Konate, who hasn't played in a game since Dec. 8 because of a knee injury, was listed as a game-time decision for Friday's semifinal game against KU, according to the Dominion Post. The 6-foot-8 Konate, who took part in full pre-game warmups before the Tech and KU games, had the same designation for Thursday's quarterfinal game against Texas Tech.
Konate did not play in the Mountaineers' 79-74 upset of Texas Tech and again did not enter the KU game.
The Dominion Post's Justin Jackson wrote after the Tech game: "Was it all a smoke screen, this news that broke early Thursday morning about Konate being cleared to play in Kansas City?"
"That's above my pay grade," West Virginia point guard Jordan McCabe told the paper. "That's for the front office."
Was it a diversion?
"I'm sure it gave them something more to worry about," WVU forward Derek Culver said of Texas Tech. "If that's what it was, it was a good idea."
