Mountaineers Rout Oakland
November 13, 2010 12:10 AM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – John Flowers scored a career-high 16 points to lead West Virginia to a season-opening 95-71 victory over Oakland Friday night at the WVU Coliseum.
Flowers, who also blocked a career-high seven shots, was one of six double figure scorers for the Mountaineers, who shot 50.8 percent from the floor, converted 19 of 24 from the free throw line and made 12 3s for the game.
Joe Mazzulla came off the bench to contribute 15 while Deniz Kilicli, Casdey Mitchell and Truck Bryant scored 12 each. Dalton Pepper was the third double-digit scorer with 10 points.
"Obviously we shot the ball well in the first half," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. "But we're still a work in progress."
The Mountaineers (1-0) never trailed in the game, building leads of 10 at 26-16 and 33-23 before using a 15-6 run to push their lead to 19, 48-29. Nine of those points came on 3s by Mitchell and Jonnie West, who finished with nine points – all behind the arc.
Another West 3 with 1;22 to go in the half built West Virginia’s lead to 20 before the margin swelled to 24 at the break.
Oakland (0-1) chipped into West Virginia’s lead in the second half, getting to within 15 twice at 60-45 and then 63-48, but the Mountaineers got a layups by Mazzulla and Kevin Jones and a free throw from Flowers to push their lead back to 20.
The Mountaineers’ biggest lead was 25 with 2:30 left when Huggins began emptying his bench.
Five NBA scouts showed up to watch 6-foot-11-inch Oakland center Keith Benson, who scored a game-high 22 points to go with 15 boards, but it took Benson 21 shots to get those 22 points.
"That's a good team and I think you saw how good Benson was in the second half," said Huggins. "We doubled him in the first half and in the second half I wanted guys to learn how to guard him."
Will Hudson contributed 16 and Travis Bader added 15. Larry Wright, the team’s second-leading returning scorer from a year ago, finished with just four points before fouling out.
Kilicli pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds for West Virginia, which finished 38 rebounds – the same as Oakland’s total.
"We didn't rebound the ball very well," said Huggins.
The Golden Grizzlies shot 38.5 percent from the floor and committed 18 turnovers. Oakland came into tonight’s contest with eight returning players from last season’s school-record 26-win campaign.
"We want to play faster and score more points," said Huggins. "I don't want to have to rely on holding teams under 70 points to win games."
"We're a pretty good team at our level and we can go 25-2 against teams on our level, and then get beat at the end of the year because when something goes bad, we don't know what our weaknesses are," said Oakland coach Greg Kampe. "These games expose our weaknesses and it's going to make us a better team."
Tonight’s announced attendance of 12,707 was a Coliseum record for home openers, topping the previous best of 11,583 against Pitt to introduce the 1973-74 season.
West Virginia returns to action in six days in Puerto Rico when its takes on Davidson in the opening game of the Honda Puerto Rico Tip-Off in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
Flowers, who also blocked a career-high seven shots, was one of six double figure scorers for the Mountaineers, who shot 50.8 percent from the floor, converted 19 of 24 from the free throw line and made 12 3s for the game.
Joe Mazzulla came off the bench to contribute 15 while Deniz Kilicli, Casdey Mitchell and Truck Bryant scored 12 each. Dalton Pepper was the third double-digit scorer with 10 points.
"Obviously we shot the ball well in the first half," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. "But we're still a work in progress."
The Mountaineers (1-0) never trailed in the game, building leads of 10 at 26-16 and 33-23 before using a 15-6 run to push their lead to 19, 48-29. Nine of those points came on 3s by Mitchell and Jonnie West, who finished with nine points – all behind the arc.
Another West 3 with 1;22 to go in the half built West Virginia’s lead to 20 before the margin swelled to 24 at the break.
Oakland (0-1) chipped into West Virginia’s lead in the second half, getting to within 15 twice at 60-45 and then 63-48, but the Mountaineers got a layups by Mazzulla and Kevin Jones and a free throw from Flowers to push their lead back to 20.
The Mountaineers’ biggest lead was 25 with 2:30 left when Huggins began emptying his bench.
Five NBA scouts showed up to watch 6-foot-11-inch Oakland center Keith Benson, who scored a game-high 22 points to go with 15 boards, but it took Benson 21 shots to get those 22 points.
"That's a good team and I think you saw how good Benson was in the second half," said Huggins. "We doubled him in the first half and in the second half I wanted guys to learn how to guard him."
Will Hudson contributed 16 and Travis Bader added 15. Larry Wright, the team’s second-leading returning scorer from a year ago, finished with just four points before fouling out.
Kilicli pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds for West Virginia, which finished 38 rebounds – the same as Oakland’s total.
"We didn't rebound the ball very well," said Huggins.
The Golden Grizzlies shot 38.5 percent from the floor and committed 18 turnovers. Oakland came into tonight’s contest with eight returning players from last season’s school-record 26-win campaign.
"We want to play faster and score more points," said Huggins. "I don't want to have to rely on holding teams under 70 points to win games."
"We're a pretty good team at our level and we can go 25-2 against teams on our level, and then get beat at the end of the year because when something goes bad, we don't know what our weaknesses are," said Oakland coach Greg Kampe. "These games expose our weaknesses and it's going to make us a better team."
Tonight’s announced attendance of 12,707 was a Coliseum record for home openers, topping the previous best of 11,583 against Pitt to introduce the 1973-74 season.
West Virginia returns to action in six days in Puerto Rico when its takes on Davidson in the opening game of the Honda Puerto Rico Tip-Off in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
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