CLEVELAND — With just seconds remaining Sunday, Gabe Osabuohien walked over to a gathering of West Virginia fans sitting courtside and gave them all high-fives before holding up his jersey to proudly sport the state’s name that ran across it.
“I was just feeling really great at that moment,” he said after the No. 22 Mountaineers knocked off No. 2 Ohio State, 67-59, at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “That was an emotional moment. The whole game was pretty much emotional for us as a team.”
The 6-foot-7 Toronto native had every reason to be excited.
You wouldn’t know that by looking at the box score, though.
“If you know basketball, and you go back and watch this game, you’d probably say Gabe was our MVP today,” WVU guard Chase Harler said.
All of it true.
Freshman Miles McBride gets the headlines and attention that comes with being a conquering hero after scoring 21 points against the Buckeyes.
Osabuohien was the young man that made it all happen, though.
Without Osabuohien’s hustle and heart, it’s hard to determine just how the Mountaineers would have fared in this one.
Without his willingness to draw three offensive foul calls, the Buckeyes may have had just enough momentum to pull away.
“I like being known as the guy who does the little things,” Osabuohien said. “Every team needs that kind of guy.”
Dig he score a lot? Not exactly. Osabuohien finished 1 of 7 shooting, with many of his shots coming after double-clutching in midair only to have the ball rattle off the side of the rim.
“I thought he was really good, but we’ve got to get him to make a lay-up once in a while,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “Defensively, he was really good.”
And defense doesn’t always show up in the box score.
It doesn’t show how Osabuohien stepped in and guarded Ohio State big man Kaleb Wesson after both Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe got in early foul trouble.
Wesson, the Buckeyes’ top scorer, did finish with 17 points, but 10 points come from the foul line and he was held to just 3 of 11 shooting.
It doesn’t show how the third offensive charge he drew came with 2:09 remaining in the game and preserved a slim 57-54 lead for the Mountaineers.
It doesn’t show how the second one he drew kept WVU trailing by just one point, 40-39, and then McBride gave the Mountaineers the lead on their very next possession.
“You could ask all of our guys, we appreciate what he does for our team,” Harler said. “He doesn’t score a ton. He knows that. The stuff he does doesn’t always show up on a stat sheet.”
Osabuohien’s steals did. He had three of them in all with the last one coming while leaping into the air to pick off a long inbounds pass before flipping it to Harler for a breakaway lay-up in the final moments.
“We pride ourselves in playing hard and that’s what I love to do,” Osabuohien said. “That’s what we want to focus on is being the hardest-working team.
“Those little plays can change a game. Taking a charge or getting a steal, those are extra possessions for us. The little things add up in the end, as you could see today.”
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