Men's Basketball: Villanova Prevails
January 31, 2004 08:42 PM | General
January 31, 2004
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VILLANOVA, Pa. – Allan Ray scored 20 points to lead Villanova to a 73-58 victory over West Virginia Saturday afternoon at The Pavilion.
Ray was 4 of 8 from three-point range and Villanova made 9 of 25 threes to improve to 12-7 overall and 4-3 in Big East play. Villanova made 27 of 53 field goal attempts for the game to shoot 50.9 percent from the floor.
“The first 10 minutes we were playing pretty well,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “Even though we had some careless turnovers we were hanging around and hanging around.”
The Wildcats used a 25-6 run over a span of eight minutes in the first half to turn a one-point deficit into a 39-21 lead after a jumper by Mike Nardi. West Virginia’s only baskets during that stretch were a jumper by D’or Fischer, a layup by Joe Herber and a dunk by Tyrone Sally.
“With this team, if they make a couple of shots and you miss a couple of shots all of the sudden you could have a deficit of two and it can turn into a deficit of eight in matter of seconds,” said Beilein. “We regroup for a while and then bang it’s back up to 15.”
Villanova led 39-24 at halftime.
The Mountaineers were able to battle back midway through the second half and cut Villanova’s lead to six following a nifty left-handed scoop shot by Sally to make it 52-46, Villanova. But the Wildcats came right back with a long three-point jumper by Ray to push the lead back to nine.
At that point it was all Villanova. Leading by eight, Villanova was able to get an unorthodox three-point basket when freshman Will Sheridan was trying to lob a pass inside for a layup. The pass was way off its mark and wound up banking off the backboard for a three-point basket to give the Wildcats 60-49 lead.
West Virginia had two great three-point looks after that, but Patrick Beilein missed the first and Kevin Pittsnogle came up short on the second.
“The key points in the game were number one the banked pass that got for a three to put it to 11 and then when it was like a nine-point game Kevin and Patrick both had wide open threes and didn’t connect and they go down and hit threes after that,” said Beilein.
Villanova was able to get its lead up to as many as 18 on a three by Nardi at 1:38.
“The first 15 minutes of the second half we outscore them and we played pretty well,” said Beilein.
West Virginia (11-7, 3-4) had a tough time shooting the basketball at times, making 22 of 54 attempts for 40.7 percent. The Mountaineers were 8 of 26 from three-point range for 30.8 percent.
In addition to Ray’s 20, Villanova got 13 points each from Randy Foye and Sheridan. Chris Sumpter and Nardi finished with 10.
Sally led West Virginia with 13 points. Patrick Beilein added 11 and D’or Fischer scored 10. Beilen led West Virginia with 7 rebounds.
Fischer had 3 blocks today to establish a single-season record with 72. He passes the previous record of 70 set by Marcus Goree in 2000.
After conference results today, West Virginia falls to 10th place in the league standings behind 3-3 Miami. The Hurricanes take on 2-4 Georgetown later tonight and Virginia Tech travels to Syracuse. Boston College lost to Connecticut Saturday to slip to 2-6 in Big East play; Virginia Tech (1-5) and St. John’s (0-7) make up the bottom of the league standings.
“I thought we played hard and we had some things that we had to be a little bit more aggressive in our zones and in our man-to-man. You want to win them all but we’ll take a one-one split on the road this week and now focus in on beating Seton Hall,” said Beilein.
West Virginia looks to rebound next Wednesday at the WVU Coliseum in an important Big East game against Seton Hall. That contest will get underway at 7 pm.
Notebook: Villanova is now 6-2 when scoring 70 points or more this season … Villanova’s 70 points snapped a three-game streak where West Virginia held its opponents to 64 points or less … Villanova avenged a 91-83 loss to West Virginia at The Pavilion last year … the Wildcats were under the same circumstances last year as today: playing West Virginia two days before facing St. Joe’s in a nationally televised Big 5 game on Monday night … Villanova has now won 18 of 31 meetings against West Virginia in the series … the two teams will play again in Morgantown on Saturday, Feb. 14 … forward Kevin Pittsnogle’s shooting slump continued Saturday against Villanova, going 2 of 7 from the floor … Pittsnogle is now just 8 of his last 39 from the floor including 5 of 22 from three-point range … Tyrone Sally’s team-leading 13 points was the fourth straight game he’s led the Mountaineers in scoring since putting up just 4 in a road loss at Providence … Sally has made 25 of 38 field goal attempts during that stretch including 6 of 11 against Villanova … Sally’s team-best 13 points were also the 14th time this year West Virginia’s top scorer has failed to reach 20 points; only once has a WVU player scored more than 20 (24 by Sally at St. John’s) since forward Drew Schifino’s dismissal after the Notre Dame game … Seton Hall, 13-4 overall and 3-2 in conference play, faces Providence Sunday before traveling to West Virginia for a game Wednesday night … Wednesday’s Seton Hall game is a Kroger Plus Card game.
