Mountaineers Advance
March 17, 2004 10:43 PM | General
March 17, 2004
KENT, Ohio – Tyrone Sally scored 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds to lead West Virginia to a 65-54 victory over Kent State in the opening round of the NIT Wednesday night at Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center.
 |
||
| Tyrone Sally scored 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds to lead West Virginia to a 65-54 win at Kent State Wednesday night in the first round of the NIT. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
Sally made 5 of 11 field goal attempts including 3 of 6 from behind the three-point line and the Mountaineers hit 6 of 6 free throws during a key stretch in the second half to capture their first postseason victory since 1998.
“It feels good,” said John Beilein, now 8-5 in NIT games coaching at Canisius, Richmond and West Virginia. “We got off to as poor a start as we probably could have. We missed foul shots, we missed a dunk, we threw up an air ball and we turned the ball over. But we ended up not losing our composure and got the win.”
“We just tried to pick it up on defense, knowing if we play on defense that will make them nervous and turn it over and we’ll get easy buckets in transition,” said Sally.
Kent State (22-9) jumped out to an 8-0 lead before West Virginia mounted a comeback, scoring eight straight points; five coming from Patrick Beilein off the bench.
West Virginia took its first lead of the game at 11-10 on another three by Beilein, and boosted its advantage to four on a three from Sally.
A pair of free throws by Kevin Pittsnogle and a floating lay up by freshman Frank Young lifted West Virginia’s advantage to eight, 21-13.
A circus shot in the paint by J.D. Collins with the shot clock winding down kept West Virginia’s lead at eight Kent State whittled it down to four, 26-22, on a John Edwards jump hook.
The Mountaineers (16-13) finished the half up five, 31-26.
Beilein was especially pleased with the first-half play of freshmen Frank Young and Tyler Relph, who combined for 8 points.
“It’s been tough for them getting playing opportunities when we shortened our bench,” said Beilein. “But at the same time we knew we would need those guys and I kept addressing that in practice. I told them, ‘You could get another shot and you’ve got to be ready.’ Tonight they were.”
Four straight points by West Virginia to start the second half gave the Mountaineers a nine-point lead, 35-26, and WVU led by as many as 12, 46-34, after one of two from the foul line by Sally with 12:16 remaining.
Then things got interesting.
The Mountaineers went scoreless for a five-minute stretch, guard Joe Herber picked up his fourth foul and Tyrone Sally left the floor for a short time with a bloody nose.
“An elbow came down on my nose and I was bleeding and they just took me out so I could take care of it,” said Sally.
In the meantime, Kent State went on a 9-0 run to cut West Virginia’s lead to three, 46-43 after Matt Jakeway followed up an Eric Haut three-point miss.
Just as he had done in the first half when WVU got behind early, Beilein once again came up big with a tough fallaway jumper at the foul line to put West Virginia up by five, 48-43. Herber followed with his first basket of the game to push the Mountaineers’ lead back to seven, 50-43.
“We thought they were holding our cutters a little bit and we couldn’t make our offense work,” said Beilein. “But part of the offense is that if we spread out and they’re going to pressure you then you’ve just got to drive to the basket and there should be no help underneath.”
At that point the Mountaineers began making their free throws. West Virginia went 6 for 6 during one stretch late in the game and finished 16 of 21 in the second half and 19 of 27 overall.
West Virginia also had to finish the game without its top two point guards. Collins twisted his ankle with 2:38 remaining in the game and Relph also left the game with an ankle injury less than a minute later.
It is unknown the extent of both players’ injuries.
“J.D. sprained it a little bit and we don’t know how bad it is,” said Beilein. “(WVU trainer) Randy (Meador) is going to give me an update. Tyler is also in the locker room getting iced.”
Patrick Beilein came off the bench to score 14, hitting 5 of 9 field goal attempts including 3 of 7 from three-point range. D’or Fischer went 8 of 8 from the foul line and finished with 12 points. Fischer also blocked four shots.
Herber ended the game with 8 points, all in the second half. Herber hit four straight clutch free throws down the stretch.
Clif Brown came off the bench to score 14 points for the Golden Flashes. Edwards finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds and Haut contributed 10, though he finished the game making 3 of 14 field-goal attempts including just 1 of 10 from three-point range.
“You have to have great effort to get to their shooters because they have so many,” said Beilein. “And then the big guy (Edwards) did not enjoy the double team a lot. It’s hard for any collegiate player to play with a double team constantly on him.”
Overall, Kent State hit 19 of 59 shots for 32.2 percent and was only 4 of 27 from behind the three-point arc for 14.8 percent.
“They’re a good team and thank God they were off from three tonight,” said Beilein.
“The 1-3-1 really worked tonight,” added Herber. “D’or had his arms up and had great deflections that led to a couple of easy run outs for us.”
West Virginia made 19 of 44 field goals for 43.2 percent and was 8 of 25 from three-point distance for 32 percent.
Kent State held a 40-31 rebounding edge but committed 20 turnovers for the game; West Virginia produced 14 steals.
“Right now we’re thankful for every game that we can play,” said Herber. “We just don’t want our season to end.”
The Mountaineers recorded their first post-season triumph since defeating No. 9 Cincinnati in the second round of the 1998 NCAA tournament.
“I told our band before the game, ‘Isn’t it great to take your spring break in Kent, Ohio where there’s snow on the ground?’ Everybody else is on spring break and they hear all of their buddies are down in Florida and there we are practicing for two hours,” said Beilein. “All good teams in Division I basketball are doing it and now they know what the reward is.”
WVU will face Rhode Island on Friday night at a site to be determined later tonight. MSNsportsNET.com will have second-round information alter tonight.
