Taming the Bulls
January 20, 2008 06:06 PM | General
January 20, 2008
BOX SCORE
TAMPA – With starting forward Joe Alexander nursing a groin injury it was up to another Joe to come in and give West Virginia a lift. Sophomore guard Joe Mazzulla did just that by scoring 11 points off the bench and providing the tough second-half defense West Virginia needed on USF center Kentrell Gransberry to knock off the Bulls, 69-52 Sunday afternoon at the St. Pete Times Forum.
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| South Florida's Mohamed Esseghir, left, battles for a loose ball with West Virginia's Darris Nichols during the first half of a college basketball game Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008, in Tampa, Fla.
AP photo/Mike Carlson |
Gransberry, who finished with a game-high 22 points, was unstoppable during two stretches in the first and second halves. Gransberry’s inside work helped USF to a 25-18 lead until he picked up his second foul with 4:25 remaining and spent the remainder of the first half on the bench.
“I thought the key to the game was when Gransberry picked up his second foul and they took him out of the game and we really turned it up man-to-man defensively,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
Gransberry’s absence helped West Virginia run off eight straight points to take a 26-25 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“We shot 29 percent in the first half and lead by one. When do you do that? When do you shoot 29 percent and lead by one?” Huggins asked rhetorically.
Once again in the second half USF went to Gransberry, at one point the 6-foot-9-inch, 270-pound center scoring 13 straight points during a six-minute stretch to help the Bulls take a 38-33 lead.
This time Huggins decided to play a triangle-and-two defense and put Mazzulla in front of Gransberry with big man behind him.
“We played triangle and two one other time (the Marquette win),” Huggins said. “When I was kind of looking and thinking about what we needed to do Joe has got great toughness. He’s the one guy on our team that has great, great toughness. I thought he could front him if we kept a guy behind and we would be OK. Actually what happened was we fronted him, we had a guy behind him, and they didn’t even throw him the ball.”
USF had just one field goal (Jesus Verdejo’s 3 with 11:18 remaining) during a nine-minute stretch and that allowed West Virginia to take a 50-45 lead.
Following another Verdejo jumper to end the USF drought with 5:09 remaining, West Virginia went on an 8-0 run to take a 13-point lead, 58-45. The Mountaineers (14-4, 4-2) then made 10 of 12 from the free throw line down the stretch to pull away.
“The free throw shooting deal, considering we didn’t get into the one-and-one until four minutes left in the game, that’s very misleading,” Huggins said. “They fouled us to try and get back into the game. We go 16 minutes in the second half without getting to the foul line.”
Once again West Virginia was able to overcome cold outside shooting. The Mountaineers shot just 29 percent in the first half, making it seven straight games West Virginia has failed to shoot at least 50 percent in the first half dating back to the Canisius win.
WVU finished the game 20 of 52 overall for 38.5 percent, including 7 of 23 from 3-point range for 30.4 percent.
“We went to a three-guard deal and the high post was open the whole time and we just didn’t make any shots. It’s similar to the Louisville game,” Huggins said. “Joe Alexander had a bunch of shots at the foul line and didn’t make them.
“Wells (Smith) had some shots, Da’Sean (Butler) had some shots; John Flowers had a ton of shots and didn’t make any. We wanted to put somebody in that could not only make shots, but Alex (Ruoff) makes good decisions and the other thing is when he’s in there they’re really going to guard him. They collapsed on him and he kicked it out to Darris and Darris makes a huge 3 for us.”
South Florida was much better shooting the basketball hitting 44.9 percent of its field goal attempts – mostly inside the paint. However, the Bulls were atrocious at the free throw line going just 4 of 15 with Gransberry the primary culprit. He finished the game making just 2 of 11.
“Thank goodness he didn’t make any free throws and that gave us a chance to make some shots and widen things out,” Huggins said.
Butler and Nichols both scored 15 points for West Virginia although both had tough shooting nights. Butler was 6 of 15 while Nichols finished 4 of 10.
“Darris Nichols made some big, big shots for us. When we were kind of struggling he made some huge shots,” Huggins said.
Leading scorer Alex Ruoff finished with 14 points – two below his season average – on 3 of 8 shooting.
Butler grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds to record his first career double-double. West Virginia managed a one rebound advantage on the glass and also forced 14 South Florida turnovers.
Dominique Jones scored 11 and Verdejo added 10 for South Florida, now 10-9, 1-5.
It was West Virginia’s first road victory in league play this season; Big East road teams are now 10-34 so far in conference play.
Alexander dressed for the game and sat on the bench but didn’t see any action. He is again questionable for Wednesday night’s game in Charleston.
West Virginia steps outside of conference play one final time on Wednesday night taking on Marshall at the Charleston Civic Center in the Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic. There are no tickets remaining for the game.
The men will follow the WVU-Marshall women’s game at 5:30 pm. Both games can be ordered on a pay-per-view basis online for $11.95 through CSTV All-Access on MSNsportsNET.com.
