Mitchell's 27 Leads Mountaineers
December 01, 2010 09:33 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Casey Mitchell scored 27 points and Kevin Jones added 16 to lead West Virginia to a 71-50 victory over American Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
Mitchell continued his torrid scoring, hitting 8 of 11 from the floor and 10 of 11 from the free throw line against the Eagles. In his last four games Mitchell has scored 31, 27, 25 and now 27.
“I thought what was good about what Casey did tonight was it wasn’t 3s,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “He wasn’t running around behind the line. He put it on the floor a little bit, he really curled it to the basket and he got some in transition. I thought this was a very good performance for Casey offensively.”
Jones, too, has been scoring more of late. The junior forward went for a season-high 22 last Saturday against VMI and is now averaging 13 points per game after getting off to a slow start to begin the season.
“I liked K.J. in the second half,” said Huggins. “I thought K.J. in the second half kind of stepped up and was what everybody is accustomed to seeing K.J. doing.”
The Mountaineers (5-1) were never really threatened tonight after taking an early 15-4 lead. Twice West Virginia boosted its advantage to 16 points in the first half, and later led by as many as 25 late in the game.
“I thought offensively we were better for a while,” said Huggins. “We just get very stagnant. We just don’t move the ball.”
Nine different players scored for West Virginia and 13 different guys saw action. Overall, WVU shot 51.1 percent from the floor (26 of 51), forced 14 American turnovers and had a 34-28 margin on the glass.
Freshman Kevin Noreen continues to catch the eye of Huggins, scoring 4 points, grabbing four rebounds and making a steal in just nine minutes of action tonight.
“Kevin Noreen just keeps coming in and making plays,” said Huggins. “We’ve got to get him to take a charge. He actually could have had two of them if he would just learn to fall down.”
American (5-2) got 19 points from forward Vlad Moldoveanu, who came into tonight’s game averaging better than 21 points per contest.
American shot 36.7 percent overall after shooting 34.6 percent in the first half.
“I thought we were a lot better defensively, particularly the first half,” said Huggins. “I thought we got to the ball. We made better rotations but we still didn’t rebound the ball the way we need to rebound the ball. Eight offensive rebounds in the first half (for American) and 14 for the game are entirely too many.”
Forward John Flowers left the game with an unspecified hip injury after playing 24 minutes, but Huggins said afterward that he expects him to be fine.
“He got elbowed right there in the hip where it’s kind of tender,” said Huggins.
West Virginia is back on the road to face Miami this Saturday at 4 p.m. The game will be televised on the Big East Network.
Notes … The attendance for tonight’s game was announced as 7,390, snapping West Virginia’s streak of eight straight games with crowds of more than 10,000 at the Coliseum dating back to last year … West Virginia has now won 32 games in a row at home in the month of December … Huggins tied Denny Crum for 20th place on the NCAA’s all-time win list with 675 … American was the fourth team in six games to fail to shoot at least 40 percent from the floor against the Mountaineers.
Mitchell continued his torrid scoring, hitting 8 of 11 from the floor and 10 of 11 from the free throw line against the Eagles. In his last four games Mitchell has scored 31, 27, 25 and now 27.
“I thought what was good about what Casey did tonight was it wasn’t 3s,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “He wasn’t running around behind the line. He put it on the floor a little bit, he really curled it to the basket and he got some in transition. I thought this was a very good performance for Casey offensively.”
Jones, too, has been scoring more of late. The junior forward went for a season-high 22 last Saturday against VMI and is now averaging 13 points per game after getting off to a slow start to begin the season.
“I liked K.J. in the second half,” said Huggins. “I thought K.J. in the second half kind of stepped up and was what everybody is accustomed to seeing K.J. doing.”
The Mountaineers (5-1) were never really threatened tonight after taking an early 15-4 lead. Twice West Virginia boosted its advantage to 16 points in the first half, and later led by as many as 25 late in the game.
“I thought offensively we were better for a while,” said Huggins. “We just get very stagnant. We just don’t move the ball.”
Nine different players scored for West Virginia and 13 different guys saw action. Overall, WVU shot 51.1 percent from the floor (26 of 51), forced 14 American turnovers and had a 34-28 margin on the glass.
Freshman Kevin Noreen continues to catch the eye of Huggins, scoring 4 points, grabbing four rebounds and making a steal in just nine minutes of action tonight.
“Kevin Noreen just keeps coming in and making plays,” said Huggins. “We’ve got to get him to take a charge. He actually could have had two of them if he would just learn to fall down.”
American (5-2) got 19 points from forward Vlad Moldoveanu, who came into tonight’s game averaging better than 21 points per contest.
American shot 36.7 percent overall after shooting 34.6 percent in the first half.
“I thought we were a lot better defensively, particularly the first half,” said Huggins. “I thought we got to the ball. We made better rotations but we still didn’t rebound the ball the way we need to rebound the ball. Eight offensive rebounds in the first half (for American) and 14 for the game are entirely too many.”
Forward John Flowers left the game with an unspecified hip injury after playing 24 minutes, but Huggins said afterward that he expects him to be fine.
“He got elbowed right there in the hip where it’s kind of tender,” said Huggins.
West Virginia is back on the road to face Miami this Saturday at 4 p.m. The game will be televised on the Big East Network.
Notes … The attendance for tonight’s game was announced as 7,390, snapping West Virginia’s streak of eight straight games with crowds of more than 10,000 at the Coliseum dating back to last year … West Virginia has now won 32 games in a row at home in the month of December … Huggins tied Denny Crum for 20th place on the NCAA’s all-time win list with 675 … American was the fourth team in six games to fail to shoot at least 40 percent from the floor against the Mountaineers.
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