West Virginia 53, Providence 48
March 06, 2009 10:42 PM | General
March 6, 2009
| West Virginia 53, Providence 48 XL center Hartford, Conn. |
||||||||||||||
Box Score
|
||||||||||||||
| Summary | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
| Stat Comparison | ||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||
| FG Made-Att | 18-61 | 19-48 | ||||||||||||
| FG Percentage | 29.5% | 39.6% | ||||||||||||
| 3P Made-Att | 5-19 | 5-19 | ||||||||||||
| 3P Percentage | 26.3% | 26.3% | ||||||||||||
| FT Made-Att | 7-10 | 10-19 | ||||||||||||
| FT Percentage | 70.0% | 52.6% | ||||||||||||
| Rebounds | 38 | 40 | ||||||||||||
| Turnovers | 13 | 17 | ||||||||||||
| Top WVU Players | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – No. 11 seed West Virginia jumped out to a 10-2 run to start the second half to help the Mountaineers come back and defeat the No. 14 seed Providence 53-48 in BIG EAST Women’s Championship first round action Friday night at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn.
"I thought we came out in the first half flat. We were standing around, no intensity, and the scoreboard showed it. The second half, we came out and played a little harder," said West Virginia coach Mike Carey.
Takisha Granberry hit a 3-pointer at the 18:39 mark of the second half to cut Providence’s halftime lead from 30-24 to 30-27. Liz Repella then hit a jump-shot followed by a Natalie Burton layup to give West Virginia their first lead of the second half, 31-30, with 16:48 to go in the game.
Chelsea Marandola of Providence then hit a jumper to put Providence back up 32-31 before Granberry hit another 3-pointer to put WVU back up 34-32 with 15:31 to go. Marandola continued to lead Providence, putting the Friars back on top with a 3-pointer at 13:37. However, Granberry was not finished and hit a jumper at 11:16 to put the Mountaineers up for good with the score at 36-35.
While West Virginia (17-13) was building their lead, they played stifling defense holding Providence to 17.3 percent shooting in the second half. The Mountaineers finished the game shooting 39.6 percent, while holding the Friars to 29.4 percent.
Granberry scored a game-high 19 points on five-of-12 shooting from 3-point range. Repella also had a double-digit game scoring 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds for her 11th double-double of the season.
“We knew we didn’t want to go home, especially to lose against a team that we had already beaten - that we’re know we’re capable of beating," Granberry said. "It would have just crushed us so we just had to come out and play harder, to fight and win.”
Burton, who has been playing excellent for West Virginia as of late, had her fourth consecutive 10-point game. Burton also added eight boards in the effort.
Providence had three players in double-digit scoring figures with Marandola finishing with 12 points. Catherine Bove scored 11 for the Friars followed by Mi-Khida Hankins with 10 points.
West Virginia now faces No. 6 seed DePaul in the second round tomorrow night at 8 p.m. DePaul previously beat the Mountaineers by a score of 74-56 on Jan. 31 in the regular season.
"DePaul runs the motion game with the backdoor cuts. They shoot the 3 a little bit better than Providence so we’ll box them out and play and they have some post players," Carey said. "We’ve got to come out and communicate on defense. We’ve got to keep them off the boards and we’ve got to get back in transition.”
