Out of Gas
November 22, 2005 09:30 PM | General
November 22, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia came out to Kansas City in the Guardians Classic hoping to get some RPI points with an upset in either of its two games. But No. 7-ranked Kentucky made sure that didn’t happen, dropping the No. 13-ranked Mountaineers, 80-66, in Tuesday night's consolation game.
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| West Virginia guard J.D. Collins tries to strip the ball during the first half of the Guardians Classic Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005 in Kansas City, Mo.
AP photo/Charlie Riedel |
Yesterday West Virginia lost a 76-75 heartbreaker to No. 2-ranked Texas.
Patrick Sparks made seven 3-point field goals and finished the game with 25 points to help the Wildcats improve to 3-1. Kevin Pittsnogle paced West Virginia with 27 points and 10 rebounds.
“Kevin did a great job with his 10 rebounds and 27 points,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “I told him that I was going to give him more rest (tonight) but I guess I lied to him.”
Unlike Monday night when West Virginia was clicking on all cylinders against No. 2 Texas, the Mountaineers had trouble finding their shooting stroke, particularly in the first-half making just 3 of its 19 first-half 3-point tries.
“We’re not a great come-from-behind team and we sort of buried ourselves in that first half,” said Beilein.
Kentucky coach Tubby Smith came out with three new starters against the Mountaineers, replacing Joe Crawford, Sheray Thomas and Lukascz Obrzut with a smaller lineup consisting of Ravi Moss, Rekalin Sims and Bobby Perry joining regulars Sparks and Rajon Rondo.
West Virginia was able to come out strong scoring nine of the game’s first 11 points, but Kentucky went on a 20-0 run behind the outstanding shooting of Sparks. West Virginia helped Kentucky’s run by missing 13 straight shots, mostly from 3-point range.
“We had wide-open shots and our guards were 0 for 9 in the first half and that’s very uncharacteristic of us,” Beilein said.
Pittsnogle finally broke the drought with a short basket in the paint, and later hit a 3 from the corner to cut UK’s lead to five, 28-23.
Kentucky led by 10, 33-23, on a three-point play by Jared Carter, but Frank Young was able to hit a 3 just ahead of the buzzer to pull the Mountaineers to within seven at the break, 33-26.
“We struggled a little bit with their zone and in the second half we were able to handle it a little better,” Beilein said.
West Virginia had a pair of second-half runs to get back into the game, scoring seven straight to cut Kentucky’s lead to three, 41-38, on a Joe Herber lay up. But Rondo answered with a pair of lay ups to make it 45-38.
Then with West Virginia trailing 56-44, Pittsnogle and Beilein hit back to back 3s and another 3 by Pittsnogle made it 56-53, Kentucky, with 7:52 remaining. Moss came out after a TV timeout to knock down a 3 to put the Wildcats back up by six, and back to back baskets by Rekalin Sims and Bobby Perry got it back to 10.
Kentucky shot 54 percent from the floor and hit 12 of 26 from 3-point range. Rondo had a strong game scoring 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Moss contributed 11.
“They’re a very good team; they were much more impressive tonight (than against Iowa Monday night),” Beilein said. “We’ve got to continue to sure up our defense. They had way too many high-percentage shots.”
The Mountaineers shot 24 of 58 for 41 percent and were just 10 of 37 from 3-point range for 27 percent.
Gansey was the only other WVU player to reach double figures with 12 points. The senior also pulled down 7 rebounds. Wet Virginia only used eight players Tuesday night while Kentucky went 10 deep.
“We’re really disappointed because we feel we can play with anybody,” Beilein said. “Playing at this level you can’t out-trick people. Sometimes our 3-zone gives people a little bit of trouble. You’ve got to be able to play man-to-man defense and you’ve got to be able to get back in transition and find your man.
“We’re not going to get any quicker between now and March and we have the type of players where we need to play great team defense,” Beilein said. “We’ll get better at it.”
West Virginia (2-2) returns to the court Saturday afternoon to take on another team from the Southeastern Conference in LSU. Prior to the game, the university will officially retire Jerry West’s jersey number 44 during a pre-game ceremony. The game has already been announced a sell-out.
