Dunking the Bulls
January 17, 2007 09:48 PM | General
January 17, 2007
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It wasn’t easy, but West Virginia was able to outlast South Florida 69-58 at the WVU Coliseum Wednesday night. The Mountaineers were looking to get back into the win column after suffering a pair of Big East road losses last week, the latest an 18-point setback at Marquette last Saturday.
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| West Virginia's Joe Alexander slammed home two of his 10 points Wednesday night. The Mountaineers defeated South Florida 69-58 at the WVU Coliseum Wednesday night.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“I think an important thing to watch in the Big East is how the scores go down,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein. “We’re still able to get that 69 and the two road games we couldn’t. If we can average 69 in the Big East … that is as many as we averaged last year.”
Frank Young led four double figure scorers with 16 points while Alex Ruoff contributed 13 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and three steals in an outstanding all-around game.
Da’Sean Butler came off the bench to score 12 points and grab six rebounds and Joe Alexander added 10 points and six boards.
“We got a couple of big plays from our forwards and all of the sudden we got a win,” Beilein said.
The Mountaineers (14-3, 4-2) finished the game shooting 8 of 32 from 3-point range, but were a frigid 1 of 14 in the second half. WVU won the game at the foul line, hitting 6 of 8 in the second half and finishing the game 7 of 11.
South Florida (10-9, 1-4) was just 9 of 20 from the line and committed 16 turnovers.
“With the exception of Buckley, they’ve got young kids and the one big-time shooter,” Beilein said. “Their guys are great rebounders and they just had a bad night from the foul line. A lot of times they missed those foul shots and got more points from it.”
McHugh Mattis scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds while Melvin Buckley added 17; 6-9 center Kentrell Gransberry scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds before fouling out with 2:21 left.
“You can see that they have some talent: when you watch the big kid Gransberry that’s the Pitt center. It seems Pitt always has a guy like that,” Beilein said. “They have a talented, talented team. They have already won as many as they did last year and their going to win more in the Big East.”
West Virginia began the game hitting the 3-ball with Ruoff, Young and Darris Nichols each making theirs to give the Mountaineers a 9-4 lead. WVU took its lead out to 15, 25-10, on a Joe Alexander lay up before South Florida went on a 10-1 run to cut the lead to six, 26-20.
West Virginia’s lead stuck around 10 until USF made an 8-0 run to cut it to three, 43-40, on a Gransberry bucket with 13:20 left. Butler answered with a jumper and Ruoff added a lay up to push the lead back to seven, 47-40.
The Mountaineers were 27 of 62 from the field for 43.5 percent. South Florida shot 44 percent on 22 of 50.
“We were shooting a very high percentage in the first half and their defense was terrific,” said Beilein. “In the second half we probably had better shots and couldn’t make one.”
The Mountaineers had only four turnovers in the first half and five for the game.
“Those were the keys,” Beilein said. “We executed against great pressure.”
West Virginia returns to the road to face a tough-luck Cincinnati team that fell to 0-3 in the league after losing 77-76 at Syracuse earlier tonight. The Bearcats had an 11-point lead in that game with about seven minutes remaining.
“South Florida was ahead by 20 on Cincinnati at South Florida,” Beilein said. “Welcome to the Big East. This league is going to be incredible this year. With the exception of Pitt right now, everybody else is going to have good games and bad games; win these games at home and somebody has got to win one on the road and we’ve got to be one of those teams.”
Saturday’s game will tip off at noon.
