Nothing terribly puzzling about last night’s game — except, perhaps, how the allegedly bewildered and sidetracked WVU team managed to play so well in the first half.

Ultimately, the elements ganged up against the Mountaineers. Sloppy turnovers by WVU and 3-pointers by Louisville invigorated the crowd and the Cardinals.

Louisville’s 2-3 zone compressed and eliminated lanes with every shot WVU missed … and WVU missed a lot of them.

The Mountaineers stopped penetrating, stopped opening the zone with passes, stopped making shots, stopped rebounding and stopped getting stops.

Add it up with an eight-player roster and a seven-player rotation and the Mountaineers lost 55-54.

WVU shot 15-for-33 in the first half to take a 37-26 lead and then 4-for-22 in the second half to be outscored 29-17. The Mountaineers had won 37 in a row when the opponent failed to score 70 points.

“We had shots,” Coach Bob Huggins said. “We missed two layups. We missed all kinds of shots around the rim. It’s not like we didn’t have shots. But we didn’t make shots and their zone got tighter.

“We spread it out in the first half and they thought we might make a shot. I thought we might to. They tricked me.”

And still, the Mountaineers probably should have won and probably would have won if Truck Bryant makes his two free throws with 25 seconds to go. Even with the misses, the Cardinals needed an extraordinarily difficult layup by Peyton Siva — Louisville guards are adapt at making ridiculous shots when it matters against the Mountaineers — to win the game.

Those are free throws – they’re free,” Bryant said. “I need to make them. I usually make them. I’m an 80-percent shooter. It’s rough not to make them in a clutch situation like that.”

His misses were compounded by Siva’s shot to save the Cardinals.

“That’s the kind of shot we want someone to shoot, I think, but it went in,” Thoroughman said.