4 Takeaways from West Virginia’s College Basketball Crown Title Game Win

T-MOBILE ARENA (LAS VEGAS) – After nearly two and a half hours of seesaws and pendulum swings, after an overtime session in which one team scored six straight points and the other – the eventual winner – reeled off the final 13 to capture the second annual college basketball crown, a celebration fit for this city awaited all those associated with West Virginia. The championship hats and necklaces are out. Cell phone cameras and social media apps came out for live streaming directly from center court. There have been money gestures from seemingly every player on the Mountaineers roster. And through it all, moments before the blue and yellow confetti rained down on the future recipients of the $300,000 NIL prizes, the lyrics to rapper Jim Jones’ “We Fly High” blared through the sound system. We stay in flight, no lie, and you know it… it’s great! Hips and thighs, oh my goodness, stay focused! To the victors went the spoils and the crown: West Virginia 89, Oklahoma 82. “As this group can do it and has shown the ability to do it all year long,” head coach Ross Hodge said in the postgame press conference, “when it looked like we were about to be finished, you know, their competitiveness and their competitiveness and their love for each other comes into play.” Here’s my takeaway from the College Basketball Crown championship game: 1. West Virginia point guard Honor Huff steals the show. When the crown that doubles as the trophy for this event was brought to center field in the middle of the championship celebration, the Mountaineers attempted to place it on Honor Huff’s head. Huff, a petite point guard listed generously at 5-foot-10, had scored a game-high 38 points while sinking eight 3-pointers and making all 12 of his free throw attempts. He was both the smallest and best player on the field. “Some of the shots they made, you just have to tip your hat to Honor Huff,” Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser said in the postgame press conference in response to my question about West Virginia’s perimeter shooting. “I mean, he took some amazing shots. We talked about, ‘What could we do?’ Our ball screen defense needed to be better. And you can’t take away a swimmer’s breath from him. He will obtain separation. He doesn’t need much separation. He backs up, he flies off the screens. I mean, [he scored] 38.” That was more than enough for Huff to be named Most Valuable Player, an award that came with a glittering necklace containing two gold dice. He was dubbed King of the Crown and showed off his newly won chain for all to see in postgame photos. The only reason his teammates failed to place the crown on his head was because Huff was already wearing a championship hat. Minutes earlier, a Mountaineer fan had yelled “West Virginia, baby!” as Huff approached. The free-throw line with 55.2 seconds remaining in overtime. When he took the court again 18 seconds later — just as the Sooners were intentionally fouling — another West Virginia fan shouted, “Oklahoma is choking!” Yet the expression on Huff’s face never changed. He had promised his team a win, a championship and a big payday with Game 3 of 30 points in his college career. “He’s a really good shooter,” Mountaineers forward Brenen Lorient said in the postgame press conference in response to my question about Huff’s performance. I’m just glad he was here to play for 32.9 percent of their points, which ranked 137th, according to KenPom. 12, trailing 15th-place TCU by nearly two percentage points And yet, after a decidedly mediocre shooting effort in a first-round win over Stanford (2 of 20 from beyond the arc), the Mountaineers got hot in the tournament’s final two games as the team buried 12 of its 30 attempts (40%) to pull away from Creighton, 87-70, in the semifinals on Saturday afternoon. A day later, West Virginia burned in the first end, making seven of its first nine attempts at 11:47 to build a double-digit lead before Oklahoma seemed to realize the game had started. [CBB CROWN RECAP: How WVU Outlasted Oklahoma in OT] The barrage began with Huff, a 34.6 percent shooter, making five straight 3s in one snap, tying the Sooners’ entire team’s point total with nine minutes left in the half. When his fifth straight attempt went through the hoop, much to the disbelief of everyone around the Oklahoma bench, Huff bounced on his tiptoes with glee while the Mountaineers faithful roared. “Honor led the country in 3s last year,” Hodge said in the postgame press conference in response to my question about the Mountaineers’ perimeter shooting. “He didn’t make one in the first game, so the law of averages tells you he’s going to make a few.” A couple, as Hodge said, ended up at eight in the championship game alone – all needed. The rest of Huff’s teammates combined to make seven triples in one afternoon as West Virginia outscored its opponent by 21 points from beyond the arc. By the end of that tournament, the Mountaineers had made 27 3-pointers in their last two outings combined. That’s a number they’ve only reached once during another two-game stretch this season. 3. Oklahoma’s elite offense can only carry the team so far. Aside from having the strongest overall resume of any team in this year’s college basketball crown, one of the reasons Oklahoma was such a popular choice to win the event centered around the Sooners’ prolific offense. Moser’s team entered the tournament with an offense that ranked in the top 20 nationally in efficiency, according to KenPom, and the group entered Sunday’s title game ranked exactly 20th. That’s a better ranking than the offenses of teams like Iowa State, Michigan State, Tennessee and UConn, all of which made deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. Such power at the end of the field was on full display in Sunday’s title game against West Virginia. The Sooners were blown out early from the 3-point line, falling behind by double digits midway through the first half. But then the fluid group that performed so well all season showed its power. Oklahoma unleashed a stunning 24-4 run in a span of eight minutes to stun the Mountaineers and upend the original storyline. When extended into the second half, the Sooners made a string of 15 field goals on 18 attempts to build a 10-point lead. “It’s just an incredible basketball game,” Hodge said in the postgame press conference. “A lot of ebb and flow.” Slowly but surely, however, Oklahoma’s defense, which now ranks 99th nationally in efficiency, began to split. In addition to the Sooners’ struggles defending Huff, who was outstanding, they allowed the Mountaineers to shoot 52 percent from the floor in the second half. At one point, West Virginia made seven of eight field goals to begin overturning a double-digit deficit. There were only two instances during the second half and overtime where Moser’s team forced more than two consecutive missed shots. 4. Sooners guard Nijel Pack’s long and winding career ends in defeat. It’s amazing to think that a lot has changed since Oklahoma point guard Nijel Pack, a well-traveled redshirt senior, made his initial college commitment to Kansas State on June 12, 2019, as a four-star prospect and No. 126 overall player in the country. At the time, it was still six months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States en masse. Bruce Weber, who resigned from Kansas State after the 2022 season, was still the Wildcats’ head coach and the man who recruited Pack. His tenure has since given way to Jerome Tang, interim coach Matthew Driscoll and, currently, Belmont alum Casey Alexander. The Big Ten had yet to annex Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA. The SEC hadn’t ripped Oklahoma and Texas out of the SEC. Hell, NIL didn’t even exist. In the meantime, Pack spent two seasons at Kansas State (first team All-Big 12 in 2022) and three seasons with the Miami Hurricanes (including a Final Four run in 2023) before finally landing at Oklahoma, where he averaged 16.6 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists this season. The championship game for the College Basketball Crown marked his 159th collegiate game and 158th start. Only a select group of players, all of whom were given an extra year due to the pandemic, have recorded more appearances. “And every one of those games, he gave it his all,” Moser said in the postgame press conference in response to my question about Pack’s career. “He gave it his all in every practice. I mean, he practices and he prepares incredibly. He’s an amazing teammate, an amazing teammate. He’s crushed right now. He just played his last game. But man, an amazing teammate. [and an] Although his team ultimately fell short, Pack did everything he could to keep the Sooners afloat down the stretch. He scored a team-high 24 points on 50% shooting and dished out seven assists. It was his 3-point basket with 1:28 left in regulation that, for a moment, seemed like the potential cornerstone of an incredible career. But overtime soon arrived and Oklahoma quickly faded. 4½ What’s next? Three teams that participated in last year’s College Basketball Crown used that experience as a starting point to advance to the NCAA Tournament in 2026: Villanova, UCF and Nebraska, who had the best season in program history and reached the Sweet 16. Based on how Oklahoma and West Virginia performed in recent days in Las Vegas, taking on their opponents with relative ease in the semifinals, it’s certainly possible. For both teams to make similar progress next season, the Sooners, who have publicly committed to giving Moser more NIL resources, will need to invest heavily in the transfer portal to rebuild a roster that includes six seniors Moser’s 2026 high school recruiting class includes just one player, four-star forward Gage Mayfield (No. 72 overall, No. 12 PF), also losing the core of its roster, which included seven players. listed as seniors or higher at the College Basketball Crown) recruiting class so far, led by five-star point guard Miles Sadler (No. 23 overall, No. 3 PG) and two other prospects ranked in the top 200 nationally. It’s a solid core to build around.