Another Nail Biter
January 22, 2003 11:18 PM | General
January 22, 2003
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Drew Schifino made his shots at the right time to lead West Virginia to a 65-61 win over Marshall Wednesday night in the 2003 Toyota Capital Classic.
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| Drew Schifino scored 17 of his game-high 21 points in the second half to lead West Virginia to a 65-61 victory over Marshall Wednesday night. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
The 6-foot-3 guard scored 17 points in the second half and finished with 21 to help the Mountaineers snap a season-long three-game losing streak.
“I didn’t know what to expect but now I can see why you play this game,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “To me it felt like it was a bit of a home game for West Virginia despite the great Marshall following.”
Schifino, coming off a 10 of 26 shooting performance at Boston College, made just seven of 19 field goal attempts Wednesday night against Marshall. But the forward made them when it counted, scoring 11 points in the game’s final seven minutes to help West Virginia pull out a much needed victory.
“Drew got it going for us after he had a dry spell there for a while,” said Beilein.
In addition to his 21 points, Schifino also pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds for the first double-double of his career for points and rebounds.
Freshman Kevin Pittsnogle added 14, including a clutch three-point basket with a little more than three minutes left to enable West Virginia to regain the lead, 55-53. There were seven ties and seven lead changes for the game.
“The play for Kevin and the play later for Schifino were right out of (assistant coach) Jeff Neubauer’s mouth,” Beilein admitted. “He sort of watches what’s going to work and he’ll call a lot of those plays for us in the huddle.”
Free throws were also a factor for West Virginia, now 10-6. The Mountaineers came into the game hitting just 59.4 percent of its charity attempts but WVU converted six of eight inside of 31 seconds, including three of four from Schifino.
West Virginia shot 46 percent from the field while Marshall managed just 38 percent for the game.
“The two teams wanted it so bad and the defenses were terrific,” said Beilein. “People playing with high energy like that tend to try and make plays they can’t make.”
Ronald Blackshear led the Herd with 17 points. However, it was his critical turnover with 22 seconds left and Marshall trailing by four that helped West Virginia seal the victory. The talented Temple transfer attempted a behind-the-back move with the ball that he lost control of and eventually led to a tie-up with the possession arrow in favor of the Mountaineers. Pittsnogle hit one of two free throws at the other end to boost WVU’s lead to five.
Blackshear and Schifino were named game MVPs.
David Anderson scored 12 and Ardo Armpalu added 10 for Marshall.
West Virginia led 9-4 at the game’s outset before Marshall went on an 8-0 run to take a 12-9 lead after a pair of free throws by Anderson. Wright and Blackshear hit back-to-back threes before that.
The two teams were tied at 16 when West Virginia went on 12-2 run to push its lead out to 10, 28-18. Three point baskets by Josh Yeager and Joe Herber sandwiched twos from Jarmon Durisseau-Collins, Tyrone Sally and Chaz Briggs.
“We got ahead by 10 because we were patient and we did our stuff,” said Beilein. “But we’re still not mature enough yet to understand why we are winning and so they got back into to the game.”
Marshall ended the half with a 14-8 run to close the gap to 36-32 at halftime.
The Capital Classic has turned into a nail biter. Last year Marshall won the game 81-79 in overtime and West Virginia pulled out a four-point decision two years ago.
Overall, West Virginia leads the series 23-8 and has a 12-3 record since the game was moved to Charleston in 1989.
Marshall drops its third straight game and falls to 8-6.
The Mountaineers return to Big East play at Rutgers on Sunday, Jan. 26 at the WVU Coliseum.
Notebook:
* Beilein mentioned during his post-game comments that he was pleased with his team’s patience on offense. He said his team’s lack of patience hurt it Sunday in a loss at Boston College, “We really hurried what we did. We didn’t do what we call ‘bleed the defense’: make them guard us for 25 seconds. See if they can guard us. If they can, fine. But when you guard them for just 15 seconds it’s a whole different thing.”
* Even though Durisseau-Collins has struggled from the field, scoring just two points tonight and missing an important free throw down the stretch, Beilein was pleased with his ability to regulate the game, “He’s really done a good job knowing what to do and when to do it. Now he can’t make a foul shot for us or make an outside shot, but he certainly runs this team the way we want it run and he defends like a son of a gun.”
* Beilein mentioned that he wasn’t surprised by Schifino’s 10 rebounds, despite standing just 6-3. “When you see him make a rush down the court and elevate, guys with that kind of timing can rebound. I’m not surprised by that. You know what? He is going to hate that stat because I’m going to bring it up now every time he shows up with just two or three a game.”
* Beilein joked that his ‘lover’s spat’ with Schifino is over, “I wouldn’t say he was in the dog house but we were having a little lover’s spat. I got on him pretty good and we’ve got a real good relationship. It’s like my wife and I walking around the house not talking to each other. We talked it out and we’re okay now.”
* MSN analyst Jay Jacobs made an interesting point about West Virginia being able to play well at critical times without Joe Herber on the floor. In the loss Sunday at Boston College, West Virginia seemed to self destruct once Herber went to the bench with his third and fourth fouls. “I thought we had the best bench play we’ve had all year in the first half,” said Beilein. “Nick (Patella) came in and threw a backdoor pass and Patrick (Beilein) doesn’t play much, but he hit a big three-point basket in the first half.”
* In its three losses to Georgetown, Pitt and Boston College, West Virginia had difficulty handling the team’s opposing big man. Six-eight, 260-pound Mike Sweetney scored 35 points and grabbed 19 rebounds for Georgetown, 6-6, 265-pound Ontario Lett had 14 points and five rebounds for Pitt, and 6-7, 260-pound Craig Smith scored a career-high 30 for BC. “We didn’t have 280-pound guys on each block coming after those rebounds tonight,” sighed Beilein.
MSN’s Tony Caridi reminded him that 6-9, 280-pound Kareem Wright and 6-10, 215-pound Herve Lamizana await the Mountaineers when they play host to Rutgers on Sunday, “Maybe we’ll get snowed out,” joked Beilein.
