Box Score Jevon Carter scored 20 points to lead 23^rd-ranked West Virginia to an 84-78 victory over Marist in tonight's second game of the AdvoCare Invitational at the HP Field House in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
 
The Mountaineers will face Central Florida tomorrow evening in the semifinals at 5 p.m. on ESPN2. Central Florida moved on to the winners bracket by defeating Nebraska 68-59 earlier tonight.
 
If West Virginia wants to get past the Knights and play in Sunday's championship game, it is going to have to play much better than it did tonight.
 
Winless Marist, now 0-4, used a variety of zone defenses and dared West Virginia to shoot 3s the entire game. The Mountaineers complied and missed 30 of the 38 they attempted, two fewer than the 40 they tried in their 23-point loss to Texas A&M in Germany to open the season.
 
"They did a great job, they really did," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said of Marist. "They changed defenses on us, but we rely so much on making 3s that we never threw the ball inside."
 
If not for Carter and sophomore Chase Harler knocking down three 3s during a two-minute stretch late in the game, the Mountaineers could have been on the other side of this one.
 
West Virginia (4-1) led 65-50 with 9:21 remaining before the Red Foxes went on a 17-2 run to tie the game at 67. Marist made five straight shots during the run but could never get the lead.
 
When the game was tied, Carter answered Brian Parker's jumper with a 3 and Harler hit another 3 from the corner a minute later. Harler's second 3 from the same spot came right after Kristinn Palsson's 3 to keep it a two-possession game.
 
Marist got the deficit to four twice with 11 and five seconds remaining, but both times West Virginia got free throws to go down to hang on.
 
The Mountaineers won this one at the free throw line, hitting 24 of 29 compared to Marist's 16 of 25, and by forcing 24 turnovers.
 
Sophomore center Sagaba Konate followed up Monday night's career-high, 20-point performance against Long Beach State with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds, but he got into early foul trouble and spent a good portion of the second half sitting on the bench.
 
"I've got to figure out what we're supposed to teach them in terms of guarding the basket because to me it seems to change weekly," Huggins said. "We need to figure that out somehow because we've got to have him in the game. He's starting to score it close and we should be able to throw it close to him and we didn't."
 
Daxter Miles Jr. contributed 12 despite missing all five of his 3-point tries.
 
"Dax was in a funk today and he wasn't feeling well but if you really want to play and you really care you do things that ordinary people wouldn't do," Huggins said. "We're not more talented than the people we're going to play but we weren't last year, we weren't the year before that or the year before that.
 
"We just played so much harder; played so much better together and played with so much more passion," Huggins added.
 
WVU's other two top scorers, Lamont West and James Bolden, also struggled to find their shooting strokes. West made 4 of 10 from the floor and missed all four of his 3s to finish with nine while Bolden was 3 of 11 and 2 of 7 from 3 to score eight.

They weren't the only ones missing, however.
 
"We had three shots inside of three feet and didn't hit the rim," Huggins said. "That's kind of inexcusable."
 
David Knudsen led Marist with 19, making 7 of his 11 shot attempts including 5 of 9 from 3.
 
Brian Parker added 14.
 
Marist is coached by Mike Maker, who worked on John Beilein's WVU staff for three seasons from 2005-07.
 
Tomorrow night, it will be interesting to see how the Mountaineers handle UCF's 7-foot-6, 295-pound center Tacko Fall, who blocked 94 shots last year and blocked four in tonight's victory over Nebraska.