The Butler Does It
January 23, 2008 11:27 PM | General
January 23, 2008
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Da’Sean Butler’s pull-up jumper with 5.6 seconds left lifted West Virginia to a 66-64 victory over Marshall Wednesday night in the 2008 Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic in Charleston.
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| West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler hits this shot with 5.6 seconds left to lift the Mountaineers to a 66-64 victory over Marshall Wednesday night in Charleston, W.Va.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Butler scored a team-high 18 points, making 6 of 11 from the field, but he was just 5 of 13 from the foul line. As a team, West Virginia was only 11 of 28 including 6 of 21 from the line in the second half.
“We’re supposed to be a good shooting team. That’s what everyone told me coming in,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. “Have you ever seen a good shooting team go 11 for 28 from the foul line?
“To me, one of the most demoralizing things that can happen in basketball is some guy going up to the line and brick two free throws,” Huggins said. “He might as well throw it out of bounds. In fact you’re better off throwing it out of bounds because at least you can come back down and get your defense set.”
West Virginia’s abysmal free throw shooting let Marshall back into the game in the second half after the Mountaineers led by 14 at one point in the first half and had 12-point lead with 8:30 left in the game.
Marshall (10-7) pulled to within two with 1:17 left when Tirrell Baines followed up Matt Walls’ missed 3-point try. The Herd tied it with 31 seconds remaining when Darryl Merthie made all three free throws after being fouled on a 3-point field goal try by WVU freshman John Flowers.
Huggins called timeout to set up a play for the winning basket. Huggins said he opted to start on the right side of the floor because guard Darris Nichols is left handed.
“It’s for Da’Sean but if Da’Sean gets veered off then we’re going to set a guy up and dribble handoff and Darris is going to curl it to the middle,” the coach explained. “He’s either going to get a shot or force help and Alex is over there to pitch it to.”
Butler instead kept the ball and took it into the paint and sank an eight-footer with 5.6 seconds left. After Butler’s basket Marshall Coach Donnie Jones called timeout to set up a play to either tie the game or win it with a 3.
In the meantime, Huggins used the timeout to set up his defense.
“We were triangle and two because I thought we could get more help,” Huggins said. “I was afraid if we want man we would chase and open up the basket. I didn’t want to open up the basket; I wanted to extend it down the floor to make them catch the ball going away.
“If you let them roll the ball up they may get a 3 and we lose. Worst case scenario is they tie it and we go to overtime,” Huggins said.
West Virginia (15-4) shot 41.4 percent for the game (24 of 58) including 41.2 percent from 3-point distance. Marshall was 19 of 54 for 35.2 percent. The Herd was just 5 of 20 from 3 for 25 percent.
“Good teams when they get somebody down its like sharks smelling blood. They just go so much harder to try and put people away. We go the other way. We guarded pretty well for a while and then we just stop guarding,” Huggins said. “We got ahead by 10, we’re going to out score them … for two days (assistant coach) Billy Hahn has said, rebound the ball at the foul line. We give up a crucial one. We foul a 3-point shooter. Why you would ever do that I don’t know?
“We have a dunk and we lose the ball out of bounds. I don’t know exactly what happened leading up to it but I thought the guy had a dunk and the next thing I know the ball is going out of bounds,” Huggins said.
Alex Ruoff finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds while Darris Nichols had 10 points and five rebounds for the Mountaineers. Joe Alexander, who missed the USF game with a groin injury, came off the bench to play 25 minutes scoring 9 points and grabbing six rebounds.
Jarrett Brown also saw action in the first half scoring 5 points on 2 of 3 shooting.
Mark Dorris scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds before fouling out with 5:37 remaining in the game. Merthie also scored 20 for Marshall, playing once again without leading scorer Markel Humphrey.
“This time of the year you try to win and go on,” Huggins said. “I’ll be over it hopefully by the time practice rolls around tomorrow.”
The two teams combined for 52 fouls, or nine more fouls than the combined number of field goals made for the game (43).
A capacity crowd of 12,580 was announced for tonight's game.
The Mountaineers have won back-to-back Capital Classic games after suffering a pair of losses to Marshall in 2005 and 2006. West Virginia returns to Big East action this Saturday facing Georgetown at the WVU Coliseum. The game has already been announced a sell out. ESPN will televise the contest nationally.
