West Virginia Falls at Villanova
February 05, 2011 03:42 PM | General
PHILADELPHIA – Maalik Wayns came off the bench to score 17 points to lead 12th-ranked Villanova to a 66-50 victory over No. 25 West Virginia Saturday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
“We just didn’t get it done,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
The Mountaineers (15-7, 6-4) had another difficult outing shooting the basketball, hitting just 19 of their 53 field goal attempts for 35.8%. Seven of the Mountaineers’ 19 field goals came from behind the 3-point arc.
“We got 16 offensive rebounds but that is certainly a correlation of how bad we shoot the ball,” said Huggins. “They’re spreading their guards out and we have open shots from the free throw line. Kevin (Jones) made the first one and we didn’t make any after that.”
Huggins was also unhappy with his team’s patience on the offensive end of the floor.
“As I continue to explain to them, we’re not just going to run up and down and beat anybody in this league,” he said. “We’ve lost too many guys. Now we can win, but we’ve got to win doing the way we have to do it. I don’t like it that way, but that’s the way it is.”
Huggins said there were plenty of scoring opportunities for his team if they could knock down some open shots.
“We had more open shots than Villanova did,” Huggins said. “We have open shots, we just don’t make them. It’s kind of frustrating having that many open looks and not make any of them and I think it hurts our defense. You kind of get your head down a little bit.”
West Virginia also made just 5 of 12 from the free throw line.
“I just told the team we lost the Louisville game because we couldn’t make free throws and we won the Cincinnati game because we did make free throws and it’s pretty much that simple,” said Huggins. “Five for 12 from the free throw line? Even eighth graders can shoot better than 5 for 12 from the foul line.”
Meanwhile, Villanova (19-4, 7-3) shot 70% in the second half (14 of 20) and finished the game shooting 54.3% overall against a West Virginia defense that came into today’s game allowing its opponents to shoot just 35% overall, including a Big East best 27% from 3.
Today, Villanova was 7 of 14 from 3-point distance, including 3 of 5 from Corey Fisher, who finished with 16 points. Mouphtaou Yarou added 11 and Antonio contributed 10.
Jones scored 16 points and grabbed six rebounds for West Virginia while John Flowers chipped in with 15. Dalton Pepper added 9 points on three 3s coming off the bench while the rest of the team contributed just 10.
Casey Mitchell, who served a week-long suspension for violating team rules, returned to the floor on Saturday but failed to score in 13 minutes of action. He was 0 for 3 shooting the basketball.
West Virginia scored a season-low 19 points in the first half and trailed by 12 at the break.
Villanova out-rebounded West Virginia 35-29 with nine of those coming from guard Dominic Cheek.
“We talked about a few things and one of those was not getting outrebounded and the truth of the matter is we won a couple last week because we were double-figure-plus in rebounding,” said Huggins. “And we said we can’t put them at the free throw line and we were a little better at that, they were 9 for 15.”
The Mountaineers have a quick two day turnaround to face fourth-ranked Pitt Monday night at the WVU Coliseum in an ESPN Big Monday game. The Panthers play Cincinnati later today in Pittsburgh.
“We just didn’t get it done,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
The Mountaineers (15-7, 6-4) had another difficult outing shooting the basketball, hitting just 19 of their 53 field goal attempts for 35.8%. Seven of the Mountaineers’ 19 field goals came from behind the 3-point arc.
“We got 16 offensive rebounds but that is certainly a correlation of how bad we shoot the ball,” said Huggins. “They’re spreading their guards out and we have open shots from the free throw line. Kevin (Jones) made the first one and we didn’t make any after that.”
Huggins was also unhappy with his team’s patience on the offensive end of the floor.
“As I continue to explain to them, we’re not just going to run up and down and beat anybody in this league,” he said. “We’ve lost too many guys. Now we can win, but we’ve got to win doing the way we have to do it. I don’t like it that way, but that’s the way it is.”
Huggins said there were plenty of scoring opportunities for his team if they could knock down some open shots.
“We had more open shots than Villanova did,” Huggins said. “We have open shots, we just don’t make them. It’s kind of frustrating having that many open looks and not make any of them and I think it hurts our defense. You kind of get your head down a little bit.”
West Virginia also made just 5 of 12 from the free throw line.
“I just told the team we lost the Louisville game because we couldn’t make free throws and we won the Cincinnati game because we did make free throws and it’s pretty much that simple,” said Huggins. “Five for 12 from the free throw line? Even eighth graders can shoot better than 5 for 12 from the foul line.”
Meanwhile, Villanova (19-4, 7-3) shot 70% in the second half (14 of 20) and finished the game shooting 54.3% overall against a West Virginia defense that came into today’s game allowing its opponents to shoot just 35% overall, including a Big East best 27% from 3.
Today, Villanova was 7 of 14 from 3-point distance, including 3 of 5 from Corey Fisher, who finished with 16 points. Mouphtaou Yarou added 11 and Antonio contributed 10.
Jones scored 16 points and grabbed six rebounds for West Virginia while John Flowers chipped in with 15. Dalton Pepper added 9 points on three 3s coming off the bench while the rest of the team contributed just 10.
Casey Mitchell, who served a week-long suspension for violating team rules, returned to the floor on Saturday but failed to score in 13 minutes of action. He was 0 for 3 shooting the basketball.
West Virginia scored a season-low 19 points in the first half and trailed by 12 at the break.
Villanova out-rebounded West Virginia 35-29 with nine of those coming from guard Dominic Cheek.
“We talked about a few things and one of those was not getting outrebounded and the truth of the matter is we won a couple last week because we were double-figure-plus in rebounding,” said Huggins. “And we said we can’t put them at the free throw line and we were a little better at that, they were 9 for 15.”
The Mountaineers have a quick two day turnaround to face fourth-ranked Pitt Monday night at the WVU Coliseum in an ESPN Big Monday game. The Panthers play Cincinnati later today in Pittsburgh.
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