Mountaineers Fall
March 22, 2004 10:19 PM | General
March 22, 2004
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Ricky Shields scored a career-high 26 points and Quincy Douby hit a go-ahead three-point basket with 1:10 left to lift Rutgers to a 67-64 victory over West Virginia in an NIT second-round game at the Louis Brown Athletic Center Monday night.
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| Ricky Shields scored two of his game-high 26 points Monday night to help Rutgers to a 67-64 victory over West Virginia. (AP photo) |
West Virginia once again had a tough time containing Shields, an athletic 6-foot-4 guard who scored 24 points the first time these two teams met back on Feb. 25. Shields made 8 of 11 field goal attempts including 5 of 6 from three-point range tonight.
“I don’t think there is a team in the country that has a defense for Ricky Shields hitting runaway shots from that far away,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
Douby contributed 15 and Herve Lamizana added 11 points.
Rutgers won the game at the foul line where it made 17 of 23 free throw attempts compared to just 9 of 14 for the Mountaineers.
“When you’re playing like this you just don’t want to stop the season,” said Beilein. “There’s been some seasons when we got to this point and we said, ‘Okay, enough.’ I didn’t want to stop coaching right now because we were rolling.”
Rutgers started off the game on fire, jumping out to a 12-3 by hitting 5 of its first 6 shots. Two quick timeouts by Beilein settled West Virginia down and the Mountaineers were able to score seven straight points to cut Rutgers’ lead to two, 12-10.
West Virginia took its first lead of the game at 18-16 on a three by Tyler Relph, and led by four, 20-16, on a tough baseline turnaround jumper by Joe Herber.
Three free throws by Sheilds after being fouled from behind the three-point line by Herber and an alley oop dunk by Adrian Hill gave the Scarlet Knights the lead once again, 21-20.
Rutgers led 25-20 before a three by Herber closed the cap to two at the four-minute mark.
West Virginia wrestled back the lead at 32-30 after a three by Pittsnogle with 57 seconds left, by Marquis Webb knotted the score right before the half on a pair of free throws.
Tyrone Sally’s lay up at the start of the second half gave WVU a 34-32 lead out of the gate, but Rutgers went on an 11-0 run to build a nine-point, 43-34 advantage. Douby and Shields keyed the run by scoring eight of the 11 points.
Rutgers built its lead to 10, 45-35, on a scoop shot by Lamizana before West Virginia made a run to get back into the game. Two free throws by D’or Fischer were sandwiched between two three-point baskets by Patrick Beilein to pull the Mountaineers to within three, 46-43.
West Virginia eventually tied the game at 54 on a lay up by Sally that was set up by a perfect feed from Relph. The game remained tied at 56 and 58 before Shields broke the tie with one of two at the foul line with 4:02 left. Shields tacked on a lay up at 3:46 to give Rutgers a three-point edge, 61-58.
But West Virginia tied it again a minute later when J.D. Collins knocked down a straight-away three with 1:49 left.
That set up Douby’s huge three with 1:10 remaining that made it 64-61, Rutgers.
“It was Lamizana, Lamizana; they were trying to get the ball to him and he’s such a good passer,” said Beilein.
Lamizana was able to get the ball to Douby for the wide open three.
West Virginia had one more shot trailing 66-64. With eight seconds left Douby was fouled on the inbounds play. He missed the first free throw and hit the second to give RU a three-point, 67-64 lead.
West Virginia got the ball to Patrick Beilein in the corner and his tough, off-balance attempt to tie the game glanced off the back of the rim. Tyrone Sally hauled down the rebound and tried to get the ball back out to a wing shooter but time had expired.
Fischer scored 16 points and blocked six shots to lead the Mountaineers. Fischer finished the season with a school-record 124 blocks – 54 more than the previous record holder Marcus Goree had in 2000.
Sally and Beilein contributed 10 each for West Virginia, which finishes its season with a 17-14 record.
WVU made 11 of 20 three-point attempts for the game.
“I liked our performance tonight,” said Beilein. “The kids are pretty down but I told them that this game was pretty indicative of our season except for the point that we lost. We’re not losers this year. We kept fighting back; we had adversity being down 12-3 early and facing a tough whistle at times; Ricky Shields hitting them from the baseline and the sideline and we still hung in there.”
Rutgers, 15-2 at the RAC this year, improves to 18-12 and takes on Villanova in the NIT quarterfinals.
