Told his team — and Kevin Jones played, and had to play, most of Monday’s game as if it was his team — had done a few of the things a visiting team just has to do to beat Connecticut on one of its home floors, WVU’s leading scorer was asked how the Mountaineers nevertheless lost again to the Huskies.

“Selfish plays down the stretch,” WVU senior forward Kevin Jones said. “We were up 10 and that’s the time you really want to run offense and get good shots. We didn’t do that.

“We were sloppy with the ball and acting like we were down. We took fast shots and drove at the basket and they blocked our shots. We’ve still got to work on that. We’re still a young team, but that’s not an excuse.”

WVU (12-5, 3-2 Big East) led 46-36 when Deniz Kilicli sank a left-handed hook shot with 11:24 to play, but missed 12 of the final 14 shots and missed all six of its 3-point attempts.

UConn (13-3, 3-2) responded with a 17-3 run and regained the lead for good 51-49 on a three-pointer by Jeremy Lamb with 5:11 remaining.

The Mountaineers missed four of five shots and had four turnovers that led to eight points to start the UConn run. WVU turned the ball over just three times in the first half.

Probably pretty accurate as any semblance of WVU’s offense just about completely disappeared and the lead followed suit. The Mountaineers took a lot of jump shots, many early in the possession, and again didn’t move the ball, which was a necessity against a team that can use its size to defend shots.

There was no space for open looks because there were no passes and UConn could kind of stay in place and guard and rebound.

Jones was the only one with a particularly strong game. Deniz Kilicli had 12 points and was in control at times, he he battled foul trouble. The collection of freshmen had their moments, but they were not consistent and looked to become intimidated by UConn’s shot blockers. Kevin Noreen was OK in relief of Kilicli, but isn’t an offensive option. Dominique Rutledge can’t not dribble, which gets him into trouble.

Worse yet, Truck Bryant had his least impressive game of this season, finishing with fewer than 10 points this season. He had his season’s lowest total of baskets and assists and played only 28 minutes because of fouls. Bryant missed 6 of 7 3-point attempts and saw his scoring average drop by six-tenths of a point.

In the end, WVU did just enough to not win the game.

“We were up 10 and everything changed,” Bryant said. “If I get an open look, I’m going to take it – any open look I get. But we were up 10 and we started taking jump shots and we didn’t make one at the end … We had the game in our hands and we let it slip away again. That’s another game we were supposed to win. That hurts.”