WVU Men Cruise
December 18, 2002 09:38 PM | General
December 18, 2002
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia jumped out to a 33-point halftime lead and cruised to an 82-55 victory over Western Carolina Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
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| West Virginia guard Jarmon Durisseau-Collins drives past Western Carolina's Alex Osipovitch during Wednesday's game at the WVU Coliseum. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Freshman Kevin Pittsnogle led five double-figure scorers with 17 points. The 6-foot-10 center made eight-of-nine field goals and also pulled down seven rebounds.
“He played a great game,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “Kevin was the only guy scoring points at the start of the second half and I really thought he rebounded well.”
Tyrone Sally continued his torrid shooting by making six-of-10 field goals, including three-of-six from three-point distance for 15 points. In his last three games, Sally has made 24-of-33 field goal attempts and is shooting 72.7 percent during the streak.
“He’s really playing well but what I love about him is that I sense that he’s really upset about those four turnovers,” said Beilein.
Drew Schifino contributed 13, Joe Herber scored 12 and Chaz Briggs came off the bench to score a season-high 12 and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
West Virginia’s Pittsnogle and Briggs combined to make 13-of-14 field goal attempts for 29 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.
“They got double-digit rebounds and scored more than 20 points -- they really played well,” said Beilein.
The last time West Virginia had five players reach double figures was last season when Chris Moss (22), Briggs (14) Jonathan Hargett (13) Schifino (12) and Josh Yeager (10) did it in an 87-77 loss against Georgetown on Feb. 27, 2002.
For Western Carolina, it wasn’t a very good first half.
"I thought they played well but we did not do anything to stop them," said Western Carolina coach Steve Shurina. "We did not put up a fight. Nobody stepped up for us."
West Virginia shot a sizzling 67.9 percent in the first half and used a stifling defense to limit Western to just 16 first-half points. The Coliseum low for points in a half was 12 by Duquesne on Feb. 6, 1980.
Western Carolina made just five-of-24 field goal attempts for a dreadful 20.8 percentage. The Catamounts also committed 14 first-half turnovers and finished with 21 for the game.
“Steve Shurina is a very good coach and he’s got a young team just like we are,” said Beilein. “They started missing some shots and we were making our shots. Momentum is a huge thing in college basketball. We came out there in the first half and everything clicked for a little bit.”
West Virginia had 17 turnovers but managed to hand out 25 assists, led by Sally’s seven.
Western rallied at the start of the second half outscoring West Virginia 16-9 to close the gap to 26, but West Virginia answered with a basket by Kevin Pittsnogle and soon got the lead back to 30.
West Virginia’s 27-point margin of victory was its widest this season and the biggest since last year when the Mountaineers downed Arkansas-Monticello 105-73.
The Mountaineers finished the game shooting 56.9 percent from the floor and have topped the 50-percent mark for the second straight game.
Forward Kevin Martin led the Catamounts with 20 points on six-of-15 shooting. Terrence Woodyard added 11.
Western Carolina, which came into the game averaging 86 points per game, drops to 3-4 on the season.
The Mountaineers (6-1) wrap up their four-game homestand Saturday with a non-conference clash against Tennessee at the WVU Coliseum. The game will tip off at 4 p.m.
“We need to rest a little bit,” said Beilein. “We really worked them hard the last couple of days. We’ll do a lot of film work and then from there we’ll have a very hard practice on Friday getting ready for a quality Tennessee basketball team that is just so athletic.”
For tickets call the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME.
