Schifino Lifts WVU
December 13, 2003 09:44 PM | General
December 13, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Drew Schifino scored 27 of his 29 points in the second half to lead West Virginia to an 88-84 overtime victory over Duquesne Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum.
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| Drew Schifino scored a game-high 29 points to lead West Virginia to an 88-84 overtime victory over Duquesne. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
West Virginia (4-2) fought an uphill battle all night against Duquesne, a team that has defeated West Virginia four out of the last five times.
“We beat a very good team that is going to win a lot of Atlantic 10 games this year,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
Duquesne shot a blistering 54.1 percent for the game including an even 50 percent from three-point distance (9 of 18).
West Virginia overcame a cold first half to finish the game shooting 52.7 percent. The Mountaineers made 17 of 23 field goal attempts in the second half for 73.9 percent, mostly by Schifino.
“I thought we did a great job of just sharing the ball and then we really pushed the ball around and found the open people,” said Beilein.
Schifino made 11 of 18 field goal attempts for the game including 3 of 5 from behind the three-point arc. The Pittsburgh native was 9 of 10 in the second half. WVU hit 8 of 22 threes and was 22 of 30 from the foul line.
“(Drew) had a rough first half but he kept his head,” said Beilein. “Sometimes some players when they’re younger they think they’re having a bad game and it’s tough for them to snap out of it. Drew really got focused back into what we were trying to do and those threes were absolutely huge.”
Duquesne jumped out to a 16-point first-half lead on a 13-0 run by the Dukes in a five-minute span. Jimmy Tricco got things going by hitting a three to give Duquesne at 15-9 lead, and another three by Jon Pawlak helped open up a nine-point advantage.
A layup by Kieron Achara and a dunk by Elijah Palmer pushed the Dukes lead out to 22-9, and four straight points by Ron Dokes gave Duquesne its biggest lead of the game.
West Virginia went on a run of its own to trim Duquesne’s lead to four, 27-23. But a layup by Tricco stopped the WVU run and the Dukes managed to outscore West Virginia 5-2 to take a 34-25 advantage into halftime.
The Mountaineers went on an 8-2 run to start the second half to cut Duquesne’s lead to three, 36-33, and the Mountaineers eventually took their first lead of the game at 42-41 on a dunk by Schifino at 13:59.
West Virginia also led 50-49 following a dunk by D’or Fischer at 11:16. But the Dukes went on a 9-0 run to push their lead out to 59-50 with 7:57 left.
Duquesne led by seven, 73-66, with 2:40 left before Schifino went to work. He hit a jumper to cut WVU’s deficit to five, then added a three at 1:55 to close the gap to 73-71.
Schifino’s three with 57 seconds left tied the game at 75, and West Virginia was able to force Palmer to miss a three-point attempt with 28 seconds left. WVU got the rebound and called timeout with 19 seconds to design a play.
However, Patrick Beilein’s three-point shot from way behind the three-point arc before the buzzer barely drew iron.
“We had a chance to win it and we didn’t execute very well,” said John Beilein.
Beilein was able to give West Virginia a quick lead at the start of overtime when he hit three-pointer, and WVU expanded its lead to five on a pair of free throws by J.D. Collins.
Duquesne scored four straight to get it within one, 80-79, but Schifino hit a jumper with 46 seconds left to put the Mountaineers back up by three.
WVU was able to convert all six of its free throws to hold off the Dukes.
In addition to Schifino’s 29, D’or Fischer came off the bench to score 12; Tyrone Sally and Kevin Pittsnogle contributed 10 points each.
West Virginia’s two point guards J.D. Collins and Tyler Relph combined to score 18 points, hand out seven assists and make 7 of 8 free throws.
Tricco scored 20 and Pawlak added 19 off the bench for Duquesne. Palmer added 16 and Dokes, who scored 29 in Duquesne’s win last year in Pittsburgh, finished with 11.
“This is the best Duquesne team I’ve seen in a long time as far as they’ve got a bunch of guys who can all jump shoot it, they all share it and they’re an excellent team,” said Beilein.
West Virginia played its second straight overtime game, having defeated No. 25 Maryland last Sunday in the consolation game of the BB&T Classic in Washington, D.C.
“Man-to-man (defense) we’re still not very good at it and we’ve got to get better. Some of the things we do are very different for a couple of our newer players we’re still a step slow with it,” said Beilein.
West Virginia returns to action on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the WVU Coliseum against IUPUI. That game will get underway at 7 p.m.
