Sickened after turning the ball over, Arron Afflalo could only
rest his cheek against the blue pad protecting the opponent’s
base of the basket.
With 2.5 seconds remaining in the game, Jordan Farmar found
himself in a similar position ““ left in disgust and disbelief
at what happened. He couldn’t shrug it off.
The man responsible for putting the UCLA tandem in a state of
despair was senior Mike Gansey. The Mountaineer guard
single-handedly disrupted the Bruins’ chances of knocking off
No. 12 West Virginia with air-tight defense against UCLA’s
backcourt, no play more important than the final steal on Farmar to
seal the Mountaineers’ victory.
“That steal was probably the best one of my career,”
said Gansey, on poking the ball free from Farmar with his left
hand. “I went up to (Farmar) and said I’m the best
defender now. I was just joking. I got a lucky steal there.
“We were just trying to foul and coach wanted me to make
an effort to steal it. But (Farmar) left the ball out in front of
me and I just reached in and tapped it.”
Though the final turnover by Farmar may have iced the win for
the Mountaineers, it was the Bruins’ carelessness with the
ball earlier in the game that cost them the victory.
Farmar had four turnovers earlier in the game, and the Bruins
had trouble all day against the Mountaineers’ 1-3-1 zone.
“Especially playing a non-conference team, our zone and
defense really messed up UCLA’s guards,” Gansey said.
“There was a lot of tipped balls and I had a lot of steals.
It’s tough going against that zone and I even hate going up
against it in practice. I guess with them not seeing this before,
that’s why they had a lot of turnovers.”
But it wasn’t just Gansey’s defense that led to West
Virginia’s victory.
It was his offense.
Coming off a career-high 33 points against Marquette two games
ago, the 6-foot-4, 205-pound senior scored a game-high 24 points on
an efficient 7-for-8 from the field, which included a perfect
3-for-3 from three-point range. Gansey also went 7-for-9 from the
free throw line in 36 minutes of play.
Just one game ago, Afflalo shut down USC’s second-leading
scorer in Gabe Pruitt, but Afflalo could not faze Gansey.
“They were running me off screens all day,” Afflalo
said.
“It was very hard to defend. I just have a make a better
effort of defense the next time around.”
Gansey, the second-leading scorer for West Virginia, scored the
first Mountaineer bucket on a layup. He swished a pull-up
three-pointer in Afflalo’s face to give West Virginia a lead
it would never relinquish with 15:48 in the first half.
He had a steal on Farmar with 1:08 in the first half and ran the
length of the court, was fouled by UCLA’s Darren Collison but
still made the basket. He converted the free throw, which gave West
Virginia its largest lead of the game 39-19. In the second half,
with the UCLA trailing 56-52 and 4:49 remaining, Gansey erased any
doubt of a comeback launching a three-pointer from four feet behind
the three-point line.
Even UCLA’s best defender had no answer.
“I’m always conscious of how I do offensively. I
mean, I would love to put up 20 points a night, but it really hurts
when I let a guy go off,” said Afflalo who went 1-for-9 from
the field. “It’s a little deeper for me. It’s a
pride thing. Not scoring, I’ll come back from that, but
defense, that’s all effort.”
“He made some tough shots. His 3-point attempts were from
beyond what I’m used to seeing.”