Mr. Clutch
March 09, 2003 04:51 PM | General
March 9, 2003
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For one of the few times this year Drew Schifino sat and watched.
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| Drew Schifino rebounded from a bad first half by scoring 11 of his team's last 13 points Saturday against Virginia Tech. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
The sophomore was suffering through a miserable first half that saw him make just 2 of 9 field goal attempts and 2 of 6 from the foul line. Midway through the second half Virginia Tech was grabbing a firm hold on the basketball game and West Virginia’s postseason hopes were taking a turn for the worse.
Mountaineer coach John Beilein knew if his team was going to pull out the game, he needed a refocused Drew Schifino on the floor.
“I turned the ball over a few times and he got mad at me,” said Schifino. “He said my head wasn’t in the game.”
“I wasn’t frustrated with him,” Beilein noted. “He was struggling and we needed to make a change at that point and settle him down.”
Did the time on the bench clear his head?
“I guess,” said Schifino. “I don’t like sitting down, though.”
Virginia Tech took an 11-point lead with 7:16 left after a Bryant Matthews layup when Beilein decided to put his star player back in the game.
Schifino went to work right away, hitting one of two free throws with 6:50 left, then after a layup by Tyrone Sally and a three by Kevin Pittsnogle, Schifino nailed a big jumper to draw the Mountaineers to within four, 64-60.
Another free throw and a three-point basket by Schifino tied the score at 64. Later, Schifino converted a twisting bank shot in front of the basket to give West Virginia a three-point lead, and then shook off his free throw shooting woes by making his final three to give the Mountaineers a four-point win and a trip to New York.
Schifino finished the game scoring 11 of his team’s last 13 points. As he has done for most of the year, the ball was in his hands when it counted.
“He made a huge three in the corner, made a nice little jump hook in the lane and hit some key foul shots down the stretch,” said Beilein.
“I owed it to the team,” said Schifino. “I knew I had to step it up for us to get to the Big East tournament.”
Schifino’s stat line wasn’t his best this year: 19 points, 5 of 13 from the field, 7 of 14 from the foul line and 2 turnovers, but it was his performance in the clutch that made the difference.
To a man, Schifino’s teammates knew that he was going to come through for them in the end.
“I admire Drew for that,” said guard Joe Herber. “It seems kind of like he lost a little bit of his focus in the first half but the way he performed at the end was really great. He was taking shots he makes all year and making big free throws. He’s a great player.”
Freshman Kevin Pittsnogle agrees.
“It shows that he has a lot of character,” said the center. “He doesn’t get down on himself and he does what he has to to get the win. He doesn’t dwell on the bad things and that’s good.”
For his part, Schifino says the manifestation of his frustrations came from his team’s season-long five-game losing streak.
“I’ve been frustrated because we’ve lost five in a row and it felt like we were letting this one slip away from us,” he said. “The crowd wanted us to get to the Big East tournament and we wanted to so that’s why I got frustrated.”
To his credit, he was able to shake off those frustrations and refocus his energies on winning a very important basketball game. Schifino says it’s really simple why an undermanned West Virginia team has managed to stay in games that on paper it probably shouldn’t be in.
“We play hard every play,” he said. “We may get down by 10 points but it’s never over until the buzzer sounds.”
Because West Virginia, now 14-14, was able to win Saturday it has the satisfaction of going into the tournament with a victory under its belt.
“We’re not backing into the tournament now,” said Schifino.
As it turned out, West Virginia didn’t need to beat the Hokies to get into postseason play. Rutgers dropped an 83-74 decision at Syracuse Sunday to finish a game behind West Virginia in the West standings.
But going into the conference tournament with a six-game losing streak wasn’t good for a young team’s psyche.
Fortunately for West Virginia, sophomore Drew Schifino took care of that Saturday afternoon.
Notebook: Schifino’s 19 points Saturday against Virginia Tech moved him into 15th place in single season scoring with 571 points, getting him past All-American guard Ron “Fritz” Williams (563 scored in 1967). Schifino can pass Williams’ 1968 total of 572 points scored in 1968 to move into 14th place Wednesday in the first round of the Big East tournament. Center Kevin Pittsnogle also made his way into the record books by moving into fifth place in freshman scoring with 332 points. He passed P.G. Greene, who scored 320 points in 1991. The final Big East tournament have been announced and West Virginia will meet Providence in the first round on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The winner of that game will take on Pitt in the quarterfinals on Thursday at 2 p.m.
