Pack Pummeled
December 06, 2006 09:48 PM | General
December 6, 2006
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia used a strong second half to down North Carolina State, 71-60 Wednesday night at the Charleston Civic Center in Charleston, W.Va.
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| West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler battles for a rebound during the Mountaineers' 71-60 victory over N.C. State Wednesday night in Charleston, W.Va.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
The Mountaineers (6-1) made 8 of 14 second-half 3-point attempts to overcome a 28-all tie at halftime. With the game tied at 40, West Virginia got four-straight 3-point baskets during a five-minute stretch to take a 53-47 lead with 9:25 left.
“We were not in control of that game at halftime and I love the way we came out,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein, now 4-0 against ACC teams since taking over the Mountaineer coaching job.
The Wolfpack cut West Virginia’s lead to two on a pair of Courtney Fells free throws and a bucket in the paint from forward Brandon Costner.
West Virginia responded with 10-point run to take its first double-digit lead of the game at 61-51 with 4:51 to go. Young hit a 3 to make it 56-51, Mountaineers, Da’Sean Butler added a pretty jumper from the foul line and Alex Ruoff knocked down his fifth 3 of the game just ahead of a Wolfpack timeout.
A Fells basket with 3:04 pulled State to within eight, 61-53, but Joe Alexander hit a 16-footer from the top of the key and then stole the ball at mid-court and went in for an easy two-handed stuff to put the game away with 1:36 left.
“Joe’s little jump shot when it was an 8-point game put it to 10 with about 2 to go was a key play in the game,” Beilein said.
Frank Young overcame a rough first half to finish with 16 for WVU. Young made just 5 of 18 shots but was 4 of 11 from 3. Alexander added 15 points and seven rebounds while Ruoff scored a career-high 15 on 5 of 6 from 3.
“The mix is very good and it’s a very unselfish group,” Beilein said. “I don’t know at the end of the year what we’ll look like or what our record will look like but I know I’m enjoying coaching them everyday because they really want to be a good team and they’ve had great people to teach them over the last couple of years.”
Darris Nichols contributed 11 points to go with eight assists and a pair of steals. Rob Summers had another outstanding floor performance grabbing a team-high eight rebounds to go with a basket and a pair of blocks and assists.
“We felt so good about the rhythm of the team. Sometimes we will say, ‘OK, let’s go to this guy.’ We didn’t really have a plan to go to a particular guy,” said Beilein. “We said just keep playing because they will find each other. That was some of the best passing in the second half. We just found people and found people over and over again.”
Beilein again went five-deep off his bench, using freshmen Da’Sean Butler, Devan Bawinkel, Joe Mazzula and Wellington Smith along with junior Jamie Smalligan to eat up valuable minutes. Butler matched his season scoring average with 9 points.
“We had 10 guys in the game. How many times do we have 10 guys in the game? It doesn’t happen very often,” Beilein said. “We just keep giving them little pieces and they feel a part of it and when there is foul trouble or somebody is having a bad game we can use those guys.”
Falls led North Carolina State (5-2), coming off a five-point loss at Virginia three nights ago, with 17 points. Costner and Ben McCauley had 15 points each while Gavin Grant had 10.
“McCauley is a good player,” Beilein said. “He runs the floor and they had some big bodies that gave us some match-up problems down in the post.”
West Virginia has its first true road game this Saturday at Duquesne. The Dukes are playing at Pitt tonight. Tip off for the West Virginia-Duquesne game is set for 7 pm.
