MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU Basketball earned their best win of the season against No. 3 Kansas, 91-85, on Saturday night. It’s not too difficult to motivate West Virginia forward Pat Suemnick but Kansas made it very easy.
“Honestly, I think we wanted it more. Before the game, coach had told us that [Kansas] didn’t even have a shootaround today,” Suemnick said following the win. “I’m sitting there like, really, you guys are just looking right over us. It just lights up that little chip on your shoulder. They’re overlooking us like this, alright let’s take it from them.”
Suemnick finished with a career-high 20 points against the Jayhawks, shooting 8-of-15 from the field. Suemnick also pulled down six rebounds in the win. For the majority of the game, Suemnick matched up with Kansas big man Hunter Dickinson. Dickinson was the No. 1 transfer this past class and was a Consensus All-American while at Michigan. Dickinson did his own thing, finishing with 19 points, five rebounds and five assists but Suemnick responded right back throughout the game.
Suemnick, who has had a much different role with West Virginia during his first season-and-a-half, has shown why he needs to be on the floor. It can be a discussion about whether or not Suemnick out-played Dickinson on Saturday.
“He did. He did,” teammate Quinn Slazinski said.
“All I know is we got the win,” Suemnick added.
In his last six games, Suemnick is averaging 11.3 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. Suemnick made his fourth straight start for WVU on Saturday vs. Kansas.
West Virginia and Suemnick were motivated by being overlooked but Kansas HC Bill Self gave the Mountaineers much credit.
“I thought everybody on their team played exceptionally well, especially in the first half. We couldn’t guard them and we didn’t come prepared to defend like we need to against guys that are really good shooters and can get their own such as [RaeQuan] Battle,” Self said. “I thought they were terrific.”
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