Men's Basketball: WVU Falls on the Road
February 25, 2004 08:59 PM | General
February 25, 2004
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| Beilein |
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Ricky Shields scored a career-high 24 points to lead Rutgers to an easy 74-53 victory over West Virginia Wednesday night at the Rutgers Athletic Center.
Sheilds, who made 10 of 18 field goal attempts, took control of the game midway through the first half when he scored eight straight points to turn a 16-16 tie into a 24-16 Scarlet Knights lead.
Back-to-back three-point plays by Adrian Hill and Sean Axani boosted Rutgers lead to 11 and the Knights built it to 13 at the half on a pair of Juel Wiggin free throws.
West Virginia, which led 14-9 at one point, had great difficulty getting good shots against Rutgers’ man-to-man defense and went the remaining 4:49 without scoring.
“They’re so quick and obviously they’re very good in this building and we were not very good,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “With the exception of just a couple of guys everyone had a bad night for us.”
A pair of inside baskets by D’or Fischer got West Virginia off to a good start at the beginning of the second half, but a 9-0 Rutgers run pushed the lead to 21.
Rutgers led by as many as 26 in the second half.
“When you’re not doing as well on offense you’re not charged up on defense and that defense (1-3-1) takes unusual effort,” said Beilein.
Rutgers finished the game making 27 of 57 field goal attempts for 47.4 percent. West Virginia recovered from a cold shooting start by shooting 56 percent in the second half to finish 23 of 53 for 43.4 percent.
The difference came at the free throw line where Rutgers made 15 of 17 free throw attempts compared to just a season-low 2 of 2 for West Virginia. The reason for West Virginia’s low free throw total was the fact that the majority of the Mountaineers’ shot attempts came from outside; WVU was just 5 of 17 from three-point range.
Rutgers held a 30-24 rebounding advantage and forced West Virginia to commit 16 turnovers.
Hill scored 11 and Quincy Douby added 10 off the bench for Rutgers, now 16-9, 7-7. The Knights are now 13-1 at the RAC this season with its lone loss coming to No. 8 Connecticut.
Patrick Beilein came off the bench to score 16 points to lead West Virginia. D’or Fischer added 14.
“I don’t know what was wrong … maybe it was just one of those February games but I’m disappointed and the team knows it,” said Beilein. “It was a bad day at the office I guess and we’re going to have to regroup, but I’m as disappointed as I’ve been since I came here.”
The final play of the first half was indicative of West Virginia’s night. The Mountaineers held the ball for the last shot but were unable to get off a shot attempt after fumbling the basketball 20 feet from the basket as the clock ran out.
“The last play of the first half was set up for a backdoor and one of our players just ran to the wrong spot,” said Beilein. “We called timeout to set up the play. There was something missing tonight and I’ve got to get my hands and find out what we’ve got to do. I’m not very critical of my team but we need a little bit more if we’re going to be able to compete down the stretch.”
West Virginia, now 14-10, 6-7, remains on the road Saturday to play at Virginia Tech in a game at Cassell Coliseum that has been announced as a sellout. That contest will tip off at noon and will be televised by ESPN Regional and will air locally on WCHS in Charleston, WOAY in Beckley, WVFX in Clarksburg and WJAL in Chambersburg, Pa.
