MORGANTOWN — Bruce Thornton got the last good punch on Saturday night and Honor Huff likely left Rocket Arena in Cleveland wishing his foot size was half an inch smaller.

Both the Ohio State and West Virginia guards lived up to their marquee matchup over the second half, but it was Thornton’s drive into the lane with 3.6 seconds remaining that handed the Buckeyes an amazing come-from-behind 89-88 victory in double overtime.

The game itself was a thriller, and you may go the rest of the season without seeing a better effort by two teams. It featured Ohio State (8-2) erasing a 16-point deficit in the second half of regulation just to get the game into overtime. The game also had 17 lead changes and was a major missed opportunity for the Mountaineers (8-4) in what was a punch-counterpunch affair that lasted nearly three hours.

“It was a lot, man,” was the way WVU head coach Ross Hodge reacted to the game on his postgame radio show. “I thought our togetherness was really good. I thought we stayed the course, even when they made their little run there in the second half.”

The show was put on by Thornton — the Big Ten’s second-leading scorer — and Huff, who entered the game as the nation’s leading 3-point specialist, but it was a show that was delayed until after halftime.

In the first half of action, Thornton had just two points. Huff nailed a three with four seconds remaining in the half for his only points.

By the time 50 minutes had run off the clock, Thornton had 21 points and Huff finished with 24 and five 3-pointers, most of them coming by way of pure determination and possibly some disbelief that they fell in the rim in the first place.

Huff was both a scoring machine and a playmaker in the second half. The senior from Brooklyn, N.Y. scored all nine of WVU’s points in the first overtime to keep the Mountaineers alive. He also had two key assists in the second overtime to keep things interesting.

“Thought we had quality looks and guys stepped into it,” Hodge said. “That’s part of the growth of this team. If Honor is going to draw that much attention, then other guys have to be ready to step up and help him.”

But, Huff’s foot just narrowly touched lines he didn’t want to touch down the stretch. With 32.6 seconds left in the first overtime, Huff drove along the baseline and saw teammate Chance Moore come open in the middle of the lane. With WVU leading, 77-76, Moore would have easily had a lay-up, but Huff’s shoe just grazed the out-of-bounds line for one of WVU’s 15 turnovers on the night.

With 12.3 seconds left in the second overtime, Huff launched an amazing deep shot over the outstretched hand of Thornton. At first, it was thought to have been another 3-pointer, but a replay review showed the tip of his left foot touching the line for a deep two-pointer that gave WVU an 88-87 lead.

Ohio State called a timeout and got the ball into Thornton’s hands with the final seconds ticking off.

During the timeout, Hodge said he discussed running a second defender at Thornton to force him to pass the ball, but decided against it.

“I’ll take the blame on that,” Hodge said. “We should have got the ball out of Thornton’s hands. He’s just too great of a player and we had a hard time. Some of the thinking is, if you run at him, you’re leaving someone wide open and you’re opening up another can of worms.

“At that point, he had woken up and willed them to victory. We should have done something else. For that, I’m disappointed in myself.”

Thornton let about seven seconds tick off the clock and then drove to the right side of the paint against WVU defender Brenen Lorient. He stopped and stepped back and nailed an 11-footer for the 89-88 lead with just 3.6 ticks remaining.

WVU’s final possession saw Moore throw a long pass to Lorient, who was in a crowd. The ball came off Lorient’s hands and Ohio State forward Colin White snatched it and threw it high into the air as the final buzzer sounded.

On the offensive side, Lorient was a perfect 7 of 7 shooting and nailed three 3-pointers, including one with 39 seconds left in the second overtime that gave WVU an 86-85 lead, after Huff lobbed a pass to him over a double team.

Lorient finished with 18 points and seven rebounds for the Mountaineers, who dropped their fourth consecutive game against opposition ranked higher than them in the NCAA’s NET rankings.

“It’s painful and disappointing,” Hodge said. “We had great opportunities to get some quality wins in the non-league and didn’t take advantage of it. The bright side of it is, you play in one of the best leagues in the country and there are going to be a lot of opportunities moving forward.”

WVU held a 51-35 lead with 14:01 remaining in regulation, but finished the half going just 4 of 15 shooting. The Mountaineers shot just 39.7% (25 of 63) for the game, but made 12 of 26 (46.2%) from 3-point range.

“We had opportunities to put the game away,” Hodge said. “We didn’t take advantage of it. It’s disappointing.”