Men's Basketball: Sally is Super
January 28, 2004 11:06 PM | General
January 28, 2004
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| Sally |
JAMAICA, N.Y. – Tyrone Sally scored a season-high 24 points and grabbed 7 rebounds to lead West Virginia to a 73-64 win over St. John’s Wednesday night at Alumni Hall.
Sally, easily playing the best basketball of his career, was near perfect Wednesday night, going 7 of 8 from the field and making 8 of 10 free throws. The 6-foot-7 forward is coming off back-to-back 18-point efforts in wins against Marshall and Boston College, and is averaging and even 20 points and 6 rebounds per game over his last three contests.
The Mountaineers also got 13 off the bench from Patrick Beilein, 12 from Joe Herber and 10 from Kevin Pittsnogle to improve to 11-6, 3-3. West Virginia has won three games in a row for just the second time this season and won a conference game on the road for the first time this year.
“I think everyone is seeing each other very well,” said Beilein of his team’s balanced scoring Wednesday night. “We’re just always looking for the open man if we’re guarded.”
St. John’s, which falls to 4-13, 0-7, got 19 points from Elijah Ingram and 15 from Darryl Hill.
Points came in bunches for both teams at the start of the game. WVU scored the game’s first seven points on to see St. John’s score the next 13 to take a 13-7 lead.
West Virginia responded by scoring the next 11 to take an 18-13 advantage. A four-point spurt by the Red Storm gave them back the lead at 18-17, but West Virginia made 11 straight points to jump out to an 12-point, 29-17 lead. The run was punctuated by a Sally three-point jumper at 8:54.
The forward added another jumper and a slam dunk to keep WVU’s led at 10; the Mountaineers went into the locker room at halftime leading by nine, 40-31.
St. John’s was able to cut West Virginia’s lead to three, 48-45 and then eventually to two, 58-56, but each time the Mountaineers responded.
A key basket for West Virginia came at the eight-minute mark when Beilein made a layup to boost the Mountaineers’ lead to four, 60-56.
“When he took it to the hoop and took it over the guy I thought that was the key play in the game,” said the coach. “That is a coach talking and not a dad talking.”
Herber tacked on a free throw to put WVU up by five, and West Virginia was able to cash in at the foul line down the stretch. WVU’s remaining nine points came from the foul line; West Virginia was 9 of 10 from the foul line down the stretch.
West Virginia made 25 of 46 field goal attempts for 54.3 percent. The Mountaineers were 8 of 22 from three-point distance for 36.4 percent. Beilein made three and Sally ad Pittsnogle each hit two threes.
St. John’s shot 48 percent for the game, but committed 21 turnovers. West Virginia center D’or Fischer officially blocked four shots to move within one of the single season school record of 70 set by Marcus Goree in 2000.
“We’ve got guys that are playing hard and playing together and it’s just a joy to watch,” said Beilein. “We’re making a lot of youthful mistakes but they’ll learn from them. This has become a good group to teach and we’re getting a lot better.”
West Virginia remains on the road to take on Villanova Saturday at DuPont Pavilion. That game will tip off at 4 pm.
“There are tough games remaining around the corner but this team just loves to practice and loves to play everyday,” said Beilein.
