Mountaineers Prevail
January 26, 2003 04:08 PM | General
January 25, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia’s had its two-man game working Sunday afternoon.
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| Drew Schifino was one point shy of his career-high of 33 points to help West Virginia to an 86-75 victory over Rutgers Sunday afteroon. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Sophomore Drew Schifino was one point shy of his career-high with 32 points and freshman Kevin Pittsnogle added 26 to lead West Virginia to an important 86-75 victory over Rutgers at the WVU Coliseum.
“I think we’re starting to get a team that knows how to play the game,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
“They ran a clinic on us on offense,” added Rutgers coach Gary Waters. “They could get what they wanted at any given time and we could do nothing about it.”
Schifino overcame back-to-back rough shooting nights against Boston College and Marshall to make 12 of 18 field goal attempts against Rutgers. Pittsnogle was just as good, hitting 10 of 15 field goal attempts, including 2 of 4 from three-point distance.
It was Pittsnogle’s ability to hit the long and medium jump shots that disrupted a Rutgers defense that came into the game allowing just 66.6 points per game. That caused Waters to go to a matchup zone.
“The problem was I had my five-man just sitting back in there helping everybody,” said Waters. “When we changed that we said you (Rutgers centers Herve Lamizana and Kareem Wright) stay on their post guy. Our whole defense changed because now Pittsnogle can run outside and shoot a jumper or do anything because we’re matching up with him.”
Pittsngole’s shooting opened up the paint for Schifino to slash and make easy baskets. Pittsnogle also made a nifty behind-the-back pass at midcourt early in the second half that resulted in another easy Schifino basket.
“Kevin has that in his arsenal and we would like to see him keep in the closet for another year,” laughed Beilein. “He’s a really skilled player and more of that stuff is starting to come out.”
West Virginia played an entertaining brand of basketball with backdoor cuts and crisp passing that led to several easy shots.
“In this game our goal was not to give up the back cut and give them layups because I’ve seen this team a number of times on tape and they had back cut layups against everyone,” said Waters. “The thing we wanted to do was not give up the back cuts and contest the three. They hit it in the early part of the game and that really got us jammed up.”
“There were a couple of times where we made some unselfish plays – that’s where I get a sense of pride with this team,” said Beilein. “We are getting a better understanding of reading each other. Our offense is based on our players recognizing each other.”
After leading 49-36 at halftime, the Mountaineers built their lead to as many 21 at 82-61 with 5:03 left.
Rutgers got hot from the outside and went on a 16-3 run over the remaining 4:30 to cut West Virginia’s lead to an uncomfortable 10 points at 85-75. Joe Herber made 1 of 2 free throws with 40 seconds left and a missed layup by Juel Wiggin gave the Mountaineers the basketball back and West Virginia ran out the clock.
Tyrone Sally snapped his nine-game streak without a double-figure scoring game with 11 points. Herber had an outstanding floor effort with 7 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and just 2 turnovers in 34 minutes.
Freshman guard Jarmon Durisseau-Collins also had a marvelous floor game, scoring 4 points and not giving up a turnover in 32 minutes of action.
Jerome Coleman came off the bench to score 30 for Rutgers, now 8-9, 0-5.
Ricky Shields added 11 and Mike Sherrod added 10.
Both teams shot the basketball well. West Virginia made 29 of 54 field goal attempts for 57.4 percent. Rutgers’ percentage was just a shade lower at 53.7 percent.
“It’s rare to face a team that shoots 50 percent and still win,” Beilein admitted. “We did that by shooting 57 percent and only giving up 8 turnovers.”
“Today we could score; we just couldn’t shut them down on defense,” said Waters.
West Virginia snapped a six-game streak where it failed to make 50 percent of its field goal attempts. The Mountaineers also snapped a two-game losing streak to Rutgers and boosted their record to 19-5 against the Knights at the WVU Coliseum.
The victory kept West Virginia (11-6, 2-3) two games ahead of Rutgers in the West division standings. However, Beilein had a few words of caution about those making early plans for a trip to New York for the Big East tournament.
“It’s like you’re up to the plate in the first inning and you say ‘This is a big pitch.’ It’s too long a season to be worrying about where we’re at in the league standings. When we get down to the last couple of games we’ll start worrying about that,” he said.
For his part, Waters isn’t throwing in the towel on the season just yet.
“They won at home, now if we go back and win at home we’re even,” said Waters. “We’ve just got to beat someone else at home. They’ve beat one team at their home and we’ve got to beat somebody else at our home. It’s pretty simple.”
West Virginia has another tough assignment Wednesday night at No. 12-ranked Notre Dame. That game will tip off at 7 p.m. ET.
Rutgers plays host to Syracuse Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. game.
