CLEVELAND – When you pull out the record books and you start sifting through the greatest basketball wins in West Virginia University history, the Mountaineers' stunning 111-105 upset over No. 5-rated Wake Forest Saturday night in the second round of the NCAA tournament has to be placed right near the top.
West Virginia (23-10) outlasted the heavily favored Demon Deacons 111-105 in a game that will forever be remembered by Mountain State natives.
"Everybody sort of knows their role," said West Virginia coach John Beilein, who is battling a hoarse throat and could barely speak during the game. "When we realized that, that is what has made us a very good team."
Mike Gansey scored 29 points including 19 in the two overtimes and senior Tyrone Sally added 21 before fouling out in the first overtime to lift the Mountaineers to the NCAA tournament "Sweet 16" for just the fourth time in school history and the first time since 1998.
With starters Sally and J.D. Collins and key reserve D'or Fischer all sitting on the bench with five fouls, West Virginia was able to overcome insurmountable odds behind the brilliant play of Gansey, who made nine of 16 field goal attempts and nine of 12 from the free throw line for his career-high scoring total.
"This is just a dream come true," said Gansey. "Obviously when Tyrone fouled out I thought maybe I would put more upon myself to be more aggressive and try and take the game over. In regulation I missed a free throw that could have maybe sealed the deal but God was looking down on me today and He gave me all the power."
The Olmstead Falls, Ohio, resident took over the second overtime by scoring West Virginia's first seven points to help the Mountaineers to a 100-94 lead. After a pair of Taron Downey free throws trimmed West Virginia's lead to four, Kevin Pittsnogle drilled a huge three from the wing to put the Mountaineers up by seven, 103-96, with 2:32 remaining.
Pittsnogle had spent a good portion of the game on the bench because of his inability to guard Eric Williams inside.
"I was happy with the minutes I did play because Eric Williams was just dominatiing me inside," said Pittsnogle. "When D'or went in that slowed him down a little bit, D'or was playing great and he deserved to play more tonight. When I got in I took the most of my minutes and I tried to score and do what I do best."
Freshman Darris Nichols hit a couple of high-pressure free throws with 1:33 remaining in the second OT to build West Virginia's lead to eight, and Joe Herber converted a lay up and added a pair of free throws with eight seconds left to ice it.
The game began to turn in West Virginia's favor midway through the second half when the Mountaineers went on a 7-0 run to turn a Demon Deacon 10-point lead into just a 54-51 advantage when Patrick Beilein converted a tough fade away 16-footer.
A Sally three-point play with 2:16 remaining cut Wake Forest's lead to one, 70-69, and then a Sally backdoor dunk with 1:04 left gave West Virginia its first lead of the game, 73-72.
"They were being aggressive on the wings and Coach was like, 'Take the alley drives.' That's what we did. We were aggressive and attacked it and did a good job of getting by them, sealing them off and finishing," said Collins.
Collins padded the lead with a pair of free throws with 41 seconds left, but a pair of misses by Gansey and Herber opened the door for Downey to sink a three from the corner to tie the game with 18 seconds to go.
Collins had a good chance to win it in regulation but his driving lay up grazed off the back side of the rim and D'or Fischer's stick back try wouldn't go.
West Virginia had another opportunity to win it in the first overtime after Downey sank another three to tie it at 93, but Joe Herber's backdoor cut layup attempt with six seconds was swatted away by Williams and he was able to secure the rebound to take it to a second overtime.
"We knew this game was going to be a matter of runs it was just a matter of who was going to play defense and get the crucial stops at the end," said Sally.
The ending was in dramatic contrast to the first half when Wake Forest (27-6) played like the team some predicted to win the national championship.
The Demon Deacons were able to use its superior athletic ability and tremendous inside play from 6-foot-9-inch, 291-pound junior center Eric Williams in the first half to chase West Virginia out of its 1-3-1 zone. At one point Wake made eight straight field goal attempts on mostly dunks to build a double-digit lead.
On the defensive end, Wake Forest was able to cover West Virginia's wing shooters and permitted just one Mountaineer three by Tyrone Sally with 7:21 remaining. That tripled pulled the Mountaineers to within 10, 27-17.
Back to back baskets by Joe Herber and D'or Fischer trimmed Wake Forest's lead to nine, 32-23, and Wake led by that same margin after a Collins short jumper when West Virginia coach John Beilein was whistled for a technical foul after Fischer was called for a foul on Jamaal Levy's shot try in the paint.
"I wish I would have had a bad hand, too, and then I wouldn't have slapped the table and got that technical," Beilein said.
Confusion on the Wake Forest bench led to Levy, a 52-percent foul shooter, taking all four shot attempts. Fortunately for West Virginia Levy only made one of the four tries and instead of a 13-point Wake Forest lead it was 10, 37-27. However, Justin Gray was able to bury a three from the top of the key just ahead of the halftime buzzer to give the No. 2-seeded Demon Deacons a 40-27 advantage at the break.
Wake Forest made 17 of 26 first-half field goal attempts for 65 percent and got 27 of its 40 first-half points in the paint.
But in the end it was West Virginia's pin-point offensive precision, overall intelligence, and Wake's inability to defend WVU's shooters that led to the Mountaineer victory. West Virginia made 37 of 70 field goal attempts for 52.9 percent. WVU overcame a frigid start from three to finish the game seven of 21 for .333 percent. Despite missing some clutch shots down the stretch, West Virginia won the game at the foul line making 30 of 39.
A key moment for Wake Forest came in the second overtime when All-American Chris Paul was called for his fifth foul attempting to draw a charge on Gansey with 3:29 left. Paul finished the game 22 points.
Downey came off the bench and fired in a team-high 27 points while Williams had 23 points and 12 rebounds. Fischer was able to neutralize Williams in the second half after he had his way with Pittsnogle in the first half.
Fischer easily had his best game since assuming a backup role with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Beilein admitted after the game he was a little surprised with Fischer's outstanding performance.
"He has not had that type of energy in there and he has not embraced this role of playing this many minutes," said Beilein. "He is a kid that has been invited to NBA camp and the fact is he's a heck of a player. But we're playing better with Kevin as a five and that's our job to win games first.
"But I was very happy that he could share in this today and he'll help us when we play that great Texas Tech team," Beilein added.
Collins managed a career-high 12 points and also handed out six assists playing against the high-profile Paul.
"It was up and down," said Collins, who committed four turnovers in the first half. "The first half I had like four turnovers in a row which is uncharacteristic for me and I just had to get my head back into the game and refocus. Coach just told me to get back out there and play like I can play and that helped me out from there."
Herber chipped in with 13 points, had three assists and grabbed two rebounds.
The Mountaineers overcame a sizable 46-35 rebounding disadvantage to Wake Forest.
"We get out-rebounded by just about everyone," said Beilein. "It's a stat that we just laugh about now. St. Joe's had that great run last year and got out-rebounded almost every game. We think rebounding is very important but we give up some of that so we can only have 11 turnovers against a high-pressure team."
West Virginia will face No. 6-seeded Texas Tech next Thursday night in Albuquerque, N.M. Texas Tech got past No. 3-seeded Gonzaga 71-69 earlier today.
Note: The team is expected to arrive back at the WVU Coliseum Sunday afternoon between 2 and 2:30 pm.
