Show of hands: Who set their clocks for Henderson v. Hannahs last night?

As I thought.

But who’s excited for two more years of games between those two?

Exactly! Neither one of those two teams are or have been very good, but, man, they’ve played some fun games these last two seasons.

Despite all of the words that were devoted to Devin Williams, to Texas Tech’s paint points, to being able to guard the Red Raiders and especially in transition, it came down to Terry Henderson and Dusty Hannahs throwing and taking blows until Henderson’s final push was enough to outdistance Hannahs and his last push.

It was a lively little game and for almost none of the reasons we thought it might be — and aren’t those usually the most enjoyable games?

The Mountaineers held Texas Tech to a to 22 points in the paint, which is 15 fewer than the season average and matches a season-low for the Red Raiders. Hannahs set an opponent record and matched a Coliseum record with his 3-point shooting.

Juwan Staten and Eron Harris were very good and Kevin Noreen was silently superb with a plus-20 plus-minus.

But it was Henderson going 10-for-13/5-for-6 and making all seven of his shots on the way to 20 points in the second half.

And he did it without much verbiage. Hannahs, it turns out, talks a lot. I heard about it after WVU won in Lubbock earlier this month and I asked about it Wednesday night, figuring Hannahs had incentive to be verbose.

“He was talking to me a little bit early in the game. ‘Are we going to have a shootout? Want to have a shootout?'” Henderson said. “I’m not even trying to communicate with him because I know we’ve got to win this game.”

Though Hannahs made plenty of noise with record-setting shooting, it was Henderson’s silence that said the most. He was 7-for-7 and scored 20 of his 28 points in the second half of the 87-81 victory against the Red Raiders. Hannahs, a shaggy-haired sophomore who’s cut his hair since the last time these two teams played, matched former WVU guard Lionel Armstead’s Coliseum record and set an opponent record by going 7-for-7 from 3-point range for 25 points.

“He’s a trash talker, but he’ll tell you after the game, ‘I’m just joking around with you,'” WVU guard Eron Harris said. “He’s a trash-talker. Pretty bad one. But it’s all fun, though.”