Beating the Bruins
February 10, 2007 05:53 PM | General
February 10, 2007
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia hasn’t quite punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament just yet, but the ticket is certainly out there waiting to be punched. The Mountaineers got 18 points from Alex Ruoff and 14 from senior Frank Young to pull off a 70-65 victory over No. 2-ranked UCLA at the WVU Coliseum Saturday.
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| West Virginia's Frank Young battles with UCLA's Michael Roll for a rebound during Saturday's game at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown. West Virginia defeated UCLA 70-65.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
The Bruins were the highest ranked team West Virginia has defeated since knocking off No. 1-rated UNLV 87-78 in Morgantown on Feb. 27, 1983. John Beilein has now won 17 times against ranked teams at West Virginia including twice this year.
“There have been a few times when we’ve had top-ranked teams come in here and we almost got there,” said Beilein. “That’s the big thing here – we got the momentum to have people come back.”
West Virginia (19-5) got key contributions from just about everyone in uniform. When Ruoff sat down with his third foul, walk-on guard Ted Talkington came in and hit two clutch baskets, one a 3 from the corner.
“You coach for kids like Ted Talkington to give everything he has and live the dream,” Beilein said.
Freshman Da’Sean Butler came off the bench to contribute 13 points including 10 in the first half. Senior center Rob Summers played tough inside, grabbing six rebounds and handing out three assists to go with four points.
Freshman Wellington Smith and Jamie Smalligan came off the bench to produce buckets.
After posting a 10-point halftime lead, West Virginia went on an 11-4 run to start the second half to build its lead to 18 and force UCLA coach Ben Howland to use his final timeout with 15 minutes still remaining.
The Mountaineers’ biggest lead was 19 on a Talkington 3 with 14:15 remaining. UCLA quickly responded with eight straight points in rapid-fire succession to cut West Virginia’s lead to 11, 47-46, and then got it down to seven, 47-40, on a pair of Arron Afflalo free throws with 11:08 remaining.
“To allow them to go up 19 points dug a big hole for us,” said UCLA coach Ben Howland. “You have to give them credit. They played well.”
A Micheal Roll 3-pointer got UCLA to within, four, 47-43, before Darris Nichols finally got West Virginia a basket. Ruoff nailed a huge 3 from the corner to put the Mountaineers back up by nine, and Nichols added another 3 off a screen with 5:34 left to make it 60-51.
“We took a couple of questionable shots and that fed West Virginia’s fire,” Howland said.
The Bruins (21-3) were playing without starting point guard and third-leading scorer Darren Collison who injured his shoulder in Wednesday night’s UCLA win. Junior center Lorenzo Mata was held out for most of the second half with a hip injury.
“He tweaked his hip flexor,” Howland said. “He had a problem with it this morning. At halftime he said he couldn’t play, and then halfway through the second half he said he could. I opted not to use him.”
Starting in Collison’s place was freshman Russell Westbrook who wound up getting a season-high 34 minutes. He finished the game 1 of 11 from the floor and also committed three turnovers.
“That’s tough for a team to come out here and play without their top point guard,” Beilein said.
Afflalo scored a game-high 27 points, making 9 of 19 shots. The 6-5 guard also grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. Alfred Aboya came off the bench to score 11, and Josh Shipp added 10.
“We don’t have any seniors on our club and it showed today,” Howland said.
UCLA shot 38.7 percent overall (24 of 62) and was just 6 of 23 from 3-point distance (26.1 percent).
The Mountaineers were 25 of 61 for 41 percent and hit 8 of 24 from 3-point distance for 33.3 percent. UCLA had a 44-33 rebounding advantage.
“West Virginia is very good at pushing the ball,” Howland said. “They’re an outstanding team.”
All three UCLA losses this year have come on the road.
West Virginia doesn’t have much time to celebrate, turning around to face Georgetown Monday night in Washington, D.C. The Hoyas defeated Marquette by 18 earlier today.
