WVU Dunks St. John's
January 17, 2008 10:09 PM | General
January 17, 2008
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia overcame some poor first-half shooting to knock off pesky St. John’s 73-64 Thursday night at the WVU Coliseum. The victory lifts West Virginia over the .500 mark in Big East play for the first time this season.
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| West Virginia's John Flowers throws down two of his 10 points in the second half of Thursday night's game against St. John's at the WVU Coliseum.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“I guess we kind of thought we were going to show up and win and we aren’t good enough to do that,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We’ve got to play.”
Da’Sean Butler led the Mountaineers with 19 points and nine rebounds, hitting 7 of 12 shots including 3 of 4 from 3-point range. Joe Alexander scored 15 while Darris Nichols and John Flowers added 10 each.
Flowers and Wellington Smith combined to score 15 points and grab eight rebounds coming off the bench for the Mountaineers.
“For some reason John is better as the game goes on,” Huggins said. “To have a decent practice I have to have John Flowers, Wellington Smith and Joe Mazzulla playing on the other team or else those guys do exactly what they want. We’ve got to figure out a way to get Wellington more reps. We’ve got to figure out a way to get John Flowers more reps so that they know what they’re doing.”
St. John’s got 15 points off the bench from Larry Wright and 14 from Anthony Mason, Jr. Eugene Lawrence grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.
“Penetration really hurts us because we’re so small and particularly when you’ve got to have Wellington go help,” Huggins explained. “Now you are rotating down with Alex (Ruoff) or Darris down on their power forwards and it’s very difficult to rebound the ball.”
West Virginia (13-4, 3-2) held St. John’s scoreless for a nearly a four-minute stretch midway through the second half to build a 10-point, 51-41 lead. West Virginia’s biggest lead was 13 points with 4:32 left.
After shooting just 32.3 percent in the first half, the Mountaineers made 13 of 22 in the second half for 59.1 percent. WVU was also 19 of 25 from the free throw line and forced 17 Red Storm turnovers. Huggins thought his team was lethargic offensively.
“We stand and hold the ball,” Huggins said. “Motion offense is about passing, cutting, moving, screening and we stand and hold the ball. Then we drive the lane like there is not going to be anybody there after holding it for four seconds. We just weren’t very good offensively.”
St. John’s shot 39.6 percent overall after making 47.8 percent of its first-half field goal tries. The Red Storm (7-9, 1-4) had a 39-30 advantage on the glass and also had a 26-20 points-in-the-paint advantage over the Mountaineers.
“At the start of the second half we take them out of what they want to do so they come out with the idea of we’re just going to drive it to the basket,” Huggins said. “Until we went point-drop they shot everything in the paint. How are we going to win when they’re shooting everything in the paint?”
West Virginia’s leading scorer Alex Ruoff finished 1 for 10 shooting with 9 points – seven points below his season average of 16.6 points coming into the game. Ruoff did finish with nine assists.
“(Alex) had pretty good looks and looks he normally makes,” said Huggins. “It happens. You don’t shoot the ball great all of the time and he didn’t shoot the ball great for two days. We have to find ways to score with the ball when we’re not making jump shots.
“You can’t continually play five on five and be a good offensive basketball team,” Huggins said. “You have to get numbers. We can’t have Alex shooting it bad, Joe Alexander shooting it bad, Darris Nichols going 4 for 10 with pretty good looks … we’re going to struggle when that happens.”
The Mountaineers hop on a charter tomorrow night after practice for a Sunday afternoon game at South Florida at the St. Pete Times Forum. Tip off is 2 pm.
