West Virginia 77, Miami 66
December 10, 2011 09:33 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – On Thursday night West Virginia got a career-high 30 points from Kevin Jones in a double-overtime victory against Kansas State.
Tonight, it was Truck Bryant’s career-high 27 points to power the Mountaineers to a 77-66 win over Miami at the WVU Coliseum, wrapping up a pretty good week with non-conference victories over teams from the Big 12 and ACC.
Even more impressive was the fact that West Virginia had less than 48 hours prep time after coming off a tough five point double-overtime win against Kansas State out in Wichita, Kan.
“We did this because they couldn’t put it on national TV tomorrow; it was originally schedule for tomorrow and to get it on national TV we moved it to today,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We talked about it and I said we’re going to have to do this in the Big East. There are one-game preps in the Big East and we’re going to have to go on the road and come home and play, or be at home and go on the road and play so we might as well start getting used to it.”
Tonight, West Virginia (6-2) used a 16-2 run at the start of the second half to turn a 37-35 halftime deficit into a 12 points lead, 51-39. The lead swelled to as many as 20, 60-40, with 11:27 remaining.
“I thought the second half we looked like a pretty good basketball team,” said Huggins, now just three victories shy of 700 for his career. “Defensively we played with a lot more energy and Truck obviously shot the ball extremely well.”
Bryant keyed the Mountaineers’ second half surge by scoring 12 points during a six-minute stretch, hitting 9 of 12 from the floor, including 5 of 7 from 3.
“I thought he was short-arming it too much and he went to (assistant coach) Jerrod Calhoun and worked with Jerrod,” said Huggins. “Obviously it helped.”
Deniz Kilicli added a season-high 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while Jones just missed another double-double with 12 points and nine boards.
The shots Miami (5-4) was making in the first half did not fall for the Hurricanes in the second half. After making half of its field goal tries in the first half (15 of 30), Miami was just 9 of 25 in the second half as the Mountaineer defense clamped down on Miami’s outside shooters.
“We changed how we were going to guard the ball screen,” said Huggins of his team’s second-half defensive approach. “We were going to push it into help, or we were going to hard-hedge it, which we hard-hedged it the majority of the year.
“A year ago we fronted it and I thought that bothered them some (in last year’s loss in Miami). If you remember, ball screens didn’t bother us as much as they just spread us out and went one on one,” said Huggins.
Malcolm Grant scored 17, but 10 of those came in the first half. Kenny Kadji added a season-high 15 while Garrius Adams came off the bench to contribute 15.
Miami led for nearly the entire first half, including an eight point lead at 13-7.
Overall, West Virginia shot 54 percent for the game (27 of 50), including 58.3 percent (14 of 24) in the second half. The Mountaineers had 19 assists on their 27 field goals and had a 33-26 edge on the glass.
WVU also had an effective evening at the free throw line, going 15 of 18 for 83.3 percent.
“It’s great to win and obviously that’s a good team we beat tonight,” said Huggins.
A season-high 12,557 showed up for tonight's game, including a large and vocal student turnout.
The Mountaineers now have a week off for finals before facing Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Las Vegas Classic. West Virginia will also play Tennessee Tech two days later before moving on to Las Vegas to play Missouri State and Baylor Dec. 22-23.
Tonight, it was Truck Bryant’s career-high 27 points to power the Mountaineers to a 77-66 win over Miami at the WVU Coliseum, wrapping up a pretty good week with non-conference victories over teams from the Big 12 and ACC.
Even more impressive was the fact that West Virginia had less than 48 hours prep time after coming off a tough five point double-overtime win against Kansas State out in Wichita, Kan.
“We did this because they couldn’t put it on national TV tomorrow; it was originally schedule for tomorrow and to get it on national TV we moved it to today,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We talked about it and I said we’re going to have to do this in the Big East. There are one-game preps in the Big East and we’re going to have to go on the road and come home and play, or be at home and go on the road and play so we might as well start getting used to it.”
Tonight, West Virginia (6-2) used a 16-2 run at the start of the second half to turn a 37-35 halftime deficit into a 12 points lead, 51-39. The lead swelled to as many as 20, 60-40, with 11:27 remaining.
“I thought the second half we looked like a pretty good basketball team,” said Huggins, now just three victories shy of 700 for his career. “Defensively we played with a lot more energy and Truck obviously shot the ball extremely well.”
Bryant keyed the Mountaineers’ second half surge by scoring 12 points during a six-minute stretch, hitting 9 of 12 from the floor, including 5 of 7 from 3.
“I thought he was short-arming it too much and he went to (assistant coach) Jerrod Calhoun and worked with Jerrod,” said Huggins. “Obviously it helped.”
Deniz Kilicli added a season-high 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while Jones just missed another double-double with 12 points and nine boards.
The shots Miami (5-4) was making in the first half did not fall for the Hurricanes in the second half. After making half of its field goal tries in the first half (15 of 30), Miami was just 9 of 25 in the second half as the Mountaineer defense clamped down on Miami’s outside shooters.
“We changed how we were going to guard the ball screen,” said Huggins of his team’s second-half defensive approach. “We were going to push it into help, or we were going to hard-hedge it, which we hard-hedged it the majority of the year.
“A year ago we fronted it and I thought that bothered them some (in last year’s loss in Miami). If you remember, ball screens didn’t bother us as much as they just spread us out and went one on one,” said Huggins.
Malcolm Grant scored 17, but 10 of those came in the first half. Kenny Kadji added a season-high 15 while Garrius Adams came off the bench to contribute 15.
Miami led for nearly the entire first half, including an eight point lead at 13-7.
Overall, West Virginia shot 54 percent for the game (27 of 50), including 58.3 percent (14 of 24) in the second half. The Mountaineers had 19 assists on their 27 field goals and had a 33-26 edge on the glass.
WVU also had an effective evening at the free throw line, going 15 of 18 for 83.3 percent.
“It’s great to win and obviously that’s a good team we beat tonight,” said Huggins.
A season-high 12,557 showed up for tonight's game, including a large and vocal student turnout.
The Mountaineers now have a week off for finals before facing Texas A&M-Corpus Christi next Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Las Vegas Classic. West Virginia will also play Tennessee Tech two days later before moving on to Las Vegas to play Missouri State and Baylor Dec. 22-23.
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