Mountaineers Fall
January 07, 2004 09:32 PM | General
January 7, 2004
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Torian Jones scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead Notre Dame to a 63-52 victory over West Virginia Wednesday night at the Joyce Center.
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| Kevin Pittsnogle scored 15 points off the bench to lead West Virginia againt Notre Dame. (AP photo) |
Torin Francis added 17 points and 7 rebounds and Chris Thomas managed 13 points and 8 rebounds to help the Irish improve to 7-3 overall and 1-0 in Big East play.
It was the Big East opener for both teams.
West Virginia (7-4, 0-1) could never get anything going offensively and finished the night shooting just 36.8 percent from the floor including 5 of 21 from three-point distance. Coming into the game, Notre Dame was the worst team in the conference defending the three allowing opponents to shoot 40.7 percent.
“We’re still struggling as a young team and the older kids have got to lead a little bit better and a little bit more,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
Kevin Pittsnogle was the only Mountaineer player to reach double figures scoring 15 off the bench. D’or Fischer started in place of Pittsnogle and finished with 9 points and 5 rebounds.
Drew Schifino also failed to reach double figures for the first time in 48 straight games to end his nation-leading streak. He scored 9.
Notre Dame never trailed in the game and built its lead to as many 12 points in the first half following a pair of layups by Torin Francis.
West Virginia was able to close to within six on a Schifino jumper with 2:51 left but a Torrian Jones stick-back layup and a pair of Rick Cornette free throws moved Notre Dame’s lead back to 10.
Tyler Relph converted a running jumper in the paint with 19 seconds left to reduce Notre Dame’s lead to eight, 33-25 at halftime.
Schifino began the second half with a driving layup to cut Notre Dame’s lead to six, 33-27, but that was as close as WVU could get.
A Francis follow-up and a three by Chris Quinn pushed Notre Dame’s lead back to 11, and the Irish led by as many as 16 following a Jones three-point play when he caught West Virginia’s Tyrone Sally and D’or Fischer sleeping on an inbounds play under the basket.
A 9-3 West Virginia run got the margin back to single digits and the Mountaineers trailed by eight with 43 seconds left after Pittsnogle’s third three, but Notre Dame iced it with a pair of free throws from Colin Falls and another from Thomas.
“We played more zone in the second half because we were in a little bit of foul trouble,” said Beilein.
Offense has been hard to come by for the Mountaineers, which scored just 51 points in a win against Howard on Dec. 30 and 103 overall in back-to-back games.
WVU was also out-rebounded 43-26; Notre Dame’s Thomas had 8 rebounds compared to West Virginia’s top rebounder Joe Herber with 6.
“We don’t come up with a lot of loose ones tonight,” said Beilein.
West Virginia’s power forward combination of Tyrone Sally and Jerrah Young finished the game with a combined 2 points and 1 rebound. Young fouled out of the game early in the second half.
“Jerrah Young getting into foul trouble was just a killer for us because he just rebounds for us,” said Beilein. “We played Tyrone 14 minutes in the first half and didn’t get one rebound. We’ve got to have some presence over at that four spot and Tyrone has struggled with it. We wanted Jerrah to clean up some of that and then he spends the whole time sitting on the bench.”
Notre Dame has won nine straight against West Virginia; the Mountaineers’ last victory against the Irish came in Morgantown in 1999.
West Virginia returns to the court Saturday to take on Georgetown in a noon game. The contest is Family Day. Contact the Mountaineer Ticket Office by calling 1-800-WVU GAME for more details.
