Men's Basketball: Sally Paces WVU
January 29, 2005 10:57 PM | General
January 29, 2005
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. – West Virginia University freshman Darris Nichols made two free throws with six seconds left to secure an 82-78 victory over Providence Saturday night at the Providence Civic Center.
The victory was West Virginia’s first at Providence since the Mountaineers downed the Friars 82-69 in 2000. The win was also a big boost for a Mountaineer team that had lost their last five games and six of their last seven.
“It probably wasn’t pretty at times but it was a win and we didn’t care how we got it,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
Tyrone Sally scored 20 points and Mike Gansey added 19 for West Virginia, which improves to 12-6, 2-5 while Providence falls to 9-10, 0-6. The Mountaineers made 17 of 22 from the free throw to ice the game.
Sally finished the game making seven of 12 from the field and hitting three of six from three-point range.
After an early 14-11 Providence lead, West Virginia went on a 17-0 run to take a 28-14 advantage after a Gansey lay up with 9:07 remaining in the first half.
West Virginia’s biggest lead of the game came at 17:34 of the second half when J.D. Collins converted a jumper to put WVU up by 16, 50-34.
The Mountaineers also led 61-45 on a three-pointer by Joe Herber with 10:29 remaining before the Friars began to come to life. A 13-5 Providence run got West Virginia’s lead to eight after a pair of Tuuka Kotti free throws with 4:16 remaining and Providence whittled West Virginia’s lead to four on a Dwight Brewington jumper, 71-67, with 2:46 left.
From that point, West Virginia made 11 of 12 free throws to preserve its lead. The critical free throws came with six seconds left with West Virginia leading by two, 80-78. Nichols coolly sank both foul shots to seal the game for the Mountaineers.
West Virginia found its shooting stroke, making 27 of 48 overall for 55.1 percent including 11 of 22 from three-point range.
Providence was also effective from the floor making 30 of 53 for 56.6 percent. The Friars, however, committed 27 turnovers despite holding a 30-19 rebounding advantage.
A bulk of the turnovers came after starting point guard Donnie McGrath left the game early in the first half with an injury after making all three of his three-point field goal attempts for nine points. West Virginia committed 23 turnovers, including 19 in the second half when Providence was forced to press.
“I’m shocked at how we reacted to (their press) but these kids are quick learners and we just haven’t seen that all year long with the trap,” Beilein said. “Usually teams will trap you once and we’re usually good enough to get out of it.
“We started the second half by attacking the trap and we had four balls go off our hands. And then all of the sudden we stopped attacking them. When people pressure you you’ve got to attack. We’ll learn from the film.”
All-Big East forward Ryan Gomes finished with 23 points and Brewington had 19.
Patrick Beilein came off the bench to score 14 for the Mountaineers including making four of four free throws with less than a minute to go in the game.
“It’s nice for Patrick to hit those for his team, for his dad and for everybody in West Virginia,” said John Beilein.
“We had to give guys rests because we were playing so hard,” added Beilein. “A lot of guys deserve tomorrow to sit around and watch us work some of the young guys out and do nothing because that was certainly just a great, great win for us at a badly needed time.”
West Virginia resumes Big East play at Boston College on Tuesday, Feb. 1, at 7:30 p.m.
