Men's Basketball: WVU Hangs on at Duquesne
November 24, 2004 09:53 PM | General
November 24, 2004
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| Beilein |
PITTSBURGH – Patrick Beilein came off the bench to score 16 points and West Virginia watched Duquesne miss two game-tying threes late to hold on to a 72-69 victory over the Dukes Wednesday night at the A.J. Palumbo Center.
Leading by three with 16 seconds left, the Mountaineers had a chance to seal the game with its best free throw shooter Beilein on the line. But he missed both foul shots and that gave Duquesne a chance to tie the game. Both Bryant McAllister and Tyler Bluemling had good looks at the basket but were unable to come up with the game-tying three as the clock wound down.
“I thought it was a fun game, people were shooting threes back and forth against each other and trading baskets,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “I think that both of us are not finished rebuilding our programs. We both had some youth in there. They had a junior college player and some young kids still playing and we’re throwing (freshmen) Darris (Nichols) and Luke (Bonner) and Mike Gansey in there.”
Tyrone Sally scored 15 points, Kevin Pittsnogle came off the bench to add 14 and Joe Herber scored 10, though he made just three of 12 field goal attempts. WVU was able to get 33 points from its bench and that proved to be the difference.
“Kevin has just been a model guy at coming off the bench and he gave it to us against tonight getting 14,” said Beilein.
“I just like our bench and it’s very possible that we may make another flip and bring another veteran off the bench.”
At the outset, a fired-up Duquesne team jumped out to an early 7-2 advantage on a three and a pair of layups from McAllister. A Herber three tied the game at seven and West Virginia took a three-point lead on a Tyrone Sally steal and dunk. The Dukes regained the lead at 21-19 when DaVario Hudson nailed a jumper at 8:25.
Beilein responded with a three to make it 22-21, and the Mountaineers eventually pushed their lead out to six points at 2:35 after back-to-back threes by Pittsnogle made it 36-30.
A Kieron Achara layup and free throw and a McAllister basket closed the Duquesne deficit to one before Herber sank two free throws at the end of half to give WVU a 38-35 halftime cushion.
Herber started the second half with a three to make it 41-35, but a three-point play by Keith Gayden and a Martin Osimani layup cut Duquesne deficit to one. A goal-tend basket credited to Mike Gansey and another Beilein three gave the Mountaineers a seven-point edge, 49-42.
West Virginia had four tries to extend its lead but was unable to convert. That gave Duquesne an opportunity to get close the gap when Jon Pawlak hit short basket inside on D’or Fischer and was fouled on the play. Pawlak hit the free throw to pull the Dukes to within four, 49-45.
Duquesne used West Virginia’s dry spell to tie the game on a Kieron Achara follow up and a pair of free throws.
A couple of Sally free throws with 8:14 snapped West Virginia’s scoreless spell, but it wasn’t until Gansey hit a three to make it 54-53 that the Mountaineers finally converted a field goal – a span of almost eight minutes. Of WVU’s seven missed field goal attempts six were tried from three-point range.
A pair of Pittsnogle free throws extended West Virginia’s lead to 56-53, but Duquesne answered with two Osimani free throws.
J.D. Collins followed up his missed free throw with a huge three-point basket from in front of West Virginia’s bench to give the Mountaineers a 59-57 lead after Bluemling’s backdoor layup put the Dukes up 57-56.
West Virginia used 58 second span from 2:25 to 1:47 to go on a 7-0 run and take control of the game. Pittsnogle got things started with a baseline jumper, Herber scored a backdoor basket and Collins hit one of two free throws to make it 69-62, West Virginia.
Collins made two big free throws after Patrick Beilein managed to convert just one of two to keep West Virginia up by five, 71-66.
West Virginia tried 35 of its 52 field goal attempts from three-point range, making 14. Overall West Virginia hit 23 of 52 for 44.2 percent.
“When we threw it inside they were going to double team us every time with their point guard and that left one guy open,” Beilein said. “If we got it in we’d have to bring it back out or hopefully we’d run enough stuff to get guys open.”
Duquesne out-rebounded the Mountaineers by 11, 36-25.
McAllister scored 16 and Gayden added 15 for the Dukes, which drop to 1-4.
“I don’t have all the answers to how we’re going to get the chemistry to work on this team but I thought we made a good step today,” Beilein said.
West Virginia (2-0) returns to action Saturday afternoon to face LSU in a 1 pm game that will be televised on Fox Sports Pittsburgh.
