Tech Outlasts WVU
February 28, 2004 03:08 PM | General
February 28, 2004
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| Pittsnogle |
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Bryant Matthews scored 28 points to lead Virginia Tech to a 53-49 win over West Virginia Saturday afternoon at Cassell Coliseum.
Matthews overcame a rough start to score 22 points in the second half to keep Tech’s Big East tournament hopes alive. The Hokies, now 12-13, 5-9, need a combination of another victory or a Miami loss to earn their first post-season berth in their last season in the Big East.
“They’ve got that big-time leader in Bryant Matthews that we don’t have,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “That’s a huge separator when you look at his 28 points, those rebounds and his foul shooting.”
West Virginia, 14-11, 6-8, is in the midst of its worst slump dropping three straight for the first time this year. Like the Rutgers game on Wednesday, West Virginia had another long spell in the second half without making a field goal and finished the game making just 15 of 46 shot attempts for 32.6 percent.
After a Pittsnogle three-pointer with 12:14 to give West Virginia a 33-31 lead, the Mountaineers didn’t hit another field goal until 1:36 when Joe Herber’s layup cut Tech’s lead to four. All six of West Virginia’s points during that stretch came from the foul line.
Pittsnogle led the Mountaineers with 22 points and Patrick Beilein added 12, but the trio of Tyrone Sally, Herber and D’or Fischer finished just 4 of 16 from the floor for a combined 13 points.
“We couldn’t get a break and we just missed some timely outside shots and some timely free throws,” said Beilein. “Nothing could come together when we needed to score points today.”
WVU also had a tough time at the free throw line, missing eight of 21 foul-shot attempts. Two of WVU’s best foul shooters, Beilein and Pittsnogle, missed six between them.
“We haven’t gone there and when you don’t go there in games it’s sometimes hard to do,” said Beilein. “It’s confounding to me. I don’t know what we can do? We drive the ball to the basket and I’m watching a different officiated game than the one that is being called so I’ve got to talk and learn to be a better coach so I can understand.”
Although Beilein refused to critique the officials after the game, there were two instances where Matthews either threw an elbow or took a swing at a West Virginia player and both were not called. Matthews’ elbow put Tyler Relph on the bench with an ice pack to his face for most of the second half and with a little more than a minute left, he took a swing at Patrick Beilein under the basket that went undetected after a hard foul by Beilein.
That was the nature of Saturday’s game.
“I’m sort of lost right now and I don’t know what was going on out there,” said Beilein. “But in the end we’re doing something wrong because we’re sending people to the foul line and we can’t get there enough.”
Shawn Harris added 10 for Tech, which sweeps the season series against the Mountaineers after defeating West Virginia 69-67 in Morgantown back on Jan. 14.
Virginia Tech couldn’t find the rim at the game’s outset, shooting just 23.1 percent in the first half as the Mountaineers built a 10-point 19-9 lead. But Virginia Tech was able to close the gap at the foul line and finished the half down four, 24-20.
The game began slipping out of West Virginia’s grasp midway through the second half when the Mountaineers went on their cold spell and Matthews began finding his shooting stroke. The 6-foot-7 senior forward hit a three-pointer to close WVU’s lead to three, 30-27, and added a jumper and a pair of three throws to tie the game at 33.
An open Shawn Harris jumper gave Tech a 35-33 lead, its first since early in the game, and the Hokies never relinquished their advantage.
Twice Tech had seven-point leads at 43-36 and 45-38 before West Virginia fought back to score five straight points to close the gap to two, 45-43.
But Matthews stepped up and knocked down a huge three with 32.5 seconds left to give Virginia Tech a more comfortable five-point edge. A pair of free throws 10 seconds later by Marcus Sailes sealed it.
“They were very aggressive in their man-to-man. They were much quicker than us at probably every single position so they used that to great advantage,” said Beilein.
West Virginia was just 6 of 24 from three-point distance and has now tried 41 three-point shots in its last two road losses to Virginia Tech and Rutgers. In those two games West Virginia has made just 11 threes.
“It was really a tough one; our guys battled so hard,” said Beilein. “We just couldn’t finish it off. The Rutgers game I thought we played without great IQ and sometimes that extra amount that you need to win on the road but today I thought we did all of that.”
The Mountaineers have had a tough time handing the ball, turning it over 33 times in their last two losses after having just five miscues against Pitt last Saturday.
West Virginia has two regular season games remaining at home against Syracuse on Tuesday and on the road at Miami on Saturday to finish up the regular season.
