WVU Holds On
January 10, 2004 04:05 PM | General
January 10, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Tyrone Sally stepped up at a time when West Virginia needed him most.
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| Tyrone Sally's 10 points and 11 rebounds keyed West Virginia's 62-58 victory over Georgetown Saturday. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
The junior scored 10 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to help the Mountaineers defeat Georgetown 62-58 Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum. WVU was coming off a disappointing 63-52 loss at Notre Dame in its Big East opener on Wednesday.
“Tyrone’s 11 rebounds were just huge for us,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “He really went in there and competed. He played at the top of the zone last year and it really made a difference in our rebounding today.”
Sally slid over into Drew Schifino’s starting forward position after Schifino was suspended indefinitely Friday for violating team rules. Schifino was the team’s leading scorer averaging 17.6 points per game.
“How do we replace (Schifino’s) point production?” Beilein asked after the game. “I pointed out seven or eight guys and said, ‘It’s 2 from you, 3 from you, 2 from you and 3 from you’ and that’s how we ended up doing it.”
The 6-foot-7, 210-pound Sally was in the midst of the worst slump of his career, scoring just 11 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in his last four games against Florida, IPFW, Howard and Notre Dame.
But Sally came up big Saturday against the Hoyas. He set the tone by scoring the game’s first basket and pulled down eight rebounds by halftime.
After struggling to find the basket at the outset, West Virginia took control of the game during a 10-minute stretch at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half when the Mountaineers held Georgetown scoreless and outscored the Hoyas 13-0.
With the score tied 15-all, the Mountaineers went on a 7-0 run to finish the first half with a 22-15 advantage. Free throws by Joe Herber and Beilein pushed West Virginia’s lead to three, 18-15, and a pair of baskets by Kevin Pittsnogle and Sally ended the half. Sally’s field goal came right ahead of the first half buzzer on a follow-up basket.
“The first half we just couldn’t do anything right and that’s a credit to West Virginia and a credit to John in relation to the defense they played,” said Georgetown coach Craig Esherick. “The 1-3-1 really gave us some trouble. He plays it a little different than a lot of people play 1-3-1s and sometimes you’re open when you don’t think you’re going to be open and you’re not open when you think you should be open.”
Three straight baskets by Herber to start the second half gave the Mountaineers a 13-point advantage with 17:44 left. Georgetown’s Brandon Bowman finally snapped the Hoya scoreless streak with a short jumper at 15:46.
Georgetown whittled West Virginia’s lead to two, 33-31, at 9:45 on a pair of free throws by Bowman, but the Mountaineers responded with a 10-1 spurt to push their margin back to 11, 43-32, with 6:54 to go after a turnaround jumper by Pittsnogle.
West Virginia led by 13 twice at 5:11 and 4:12 before Georgetown scored 10 straight points in a span of two minutes to cut WVU’s lead to three, 49-46.
“The one good thing we did is I thought we didn’t quit,” said Esherick. “We could have quit a couple times during the course of the game and we had a heck of a comeback and cut it to three.”
Sally stopped the Hoya run with a free throw at 2:05. Sally then made a pair of free throws at 1:52 to push West Virginia’s advantage to six; all 10 of West Virginia’s remaining points came from the charity stripe.
Bowman and Ashanti Cook finished with 16 points each for Georgetown, which drops to 10-2, 1-2. Gerald Riley contributed 13.
Herber led West Virginia with 15 points on 6 of 14 shooting. Herber was the only West Virginia player to cash in from three-point distance, making 2 of 5 threes; the Mountaineers finished the game 2 of 16 from three-point distance.
“If you’d tell me we’d make just 2 of 16 from three, have 21 turnovers and 7 assists and still win the game I’d say it’s not going to happen very often,” said Beilein. “There was unbelievable effort on both sides to contest every pass, to bother every dribbler and to play at 100 percent on every single possession.”
Six-eleven center D’or Fischer changed the complexion of the game by blocking all six of his shots in the first half. Fischer scored 8 points and grabbed 7 rebounds to go with his 6 blocks.
The Mountaineers finished the game with 10 blocks and held Georgetown to just 22 of 71 from the floor for 31 percent. West Virginia wasn’t much better from the floor either, making 16 of 45 field goal attempts for 35.6 percent. The difference in the game came at the free throw line where WVU made 28 of 40; Georgetown was 8 of 12.
“It’s a pretty significant victory for us in that our kids came out there with so much energy,” said Beilein.
“We have to go back and lick our wounds because this is the league we play in; this is a tough league and we have to grow up and we have to be ready to play,” said Esherick.
The win boosts West Virginia’s record to 8-4, 1-1 and sets up the Mountaineers for an important conference game Wednesday night against Virginia Tech at the Coliseum. That game will tip off at 7 pm.
Notebook: Georgetown’s 15 first-half points were the fewest ever allowed by West Virginia in a Big East game … the school record for fewest points scored by an opponent in the first half at the WVU Coliseum was 13 by Rhode Island on March 3, 1987 … West Virginia’s defense has now allowed just 158 points in its last three games for an average of 52.7 points per game … West Virginia snapped an eight-game losing streak to Georgetown, having last won against the Hoyas in 1999 … Patrick Beilein went 8 for 8 from the free throw line Saturday to tie Stan Boskovich’s school record for consecutive free throws made at 32; Boskovich set the record during the 1975 season while Beilein’s total is over two seasons … Beilein is 25 of 25 from the foul line this year … D’or Fischer’s 6 blocks Saturday gives him 49 for the season and moved him into a tie with Tim Kearney for fifth place in single-season blocks; the school record for blocks in a season is 70 by Marcus Goree in 2000.
