Mountaineers Hang on to Beat Monmouth
November 14, 2014 10:13 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Bob Huggins said his offense was still a work in progress and he wasn’t kidding.
West Virginia shot just 16.7 percent in the first half, finished the game shooting 26.1 percent overall and needed all 40 minutes to hold off Monmouth, 64-54, during Friday night’s season opener at the WVU Coliseum.
“We couldn’t make a shot,” said Huggins. “It wasn’t like we didn’t have pretty good shots – we had good shots. We threw it close like you’re supposed to and we didn’t finish inside. Our two guys we depend on to make plays didn’t make plays in the first half.”
An announced crowd of 6,792 watched in disbelief as Monmouth built a 37-23 lead with 16:39 remaining and the Hawks had a 13-point advantage with 13:30 left when the Mountaineers finally started making some shots and began chipping away at Monmouth’s lead.
A Jaysean Paige 3 got things going, Gary Browne added a big steal and layup, an Elijah Macon tip-in got the margin down to six and eventually, two Juwan Staten free throws with 4:47 left gave the Mountaineers back the lead, 49-48.
“I thought Gary was terrific,” said Huggins. “Gary’s Gary. He’s not going to get you 20 points but Gary is going to play really hard. He made a couple of big steals and got things turned around. He got the layup in transition and got the steal and called timeout and that really kind of got the game turned for us.”
Two more Staten free throws made it 51-48 and then a Staten jumper got the lead to five with 3:18 left. The margin swelled to seven on a Devin Williams basket and another Williams bucket and free throw with 39 seconds left got the lead to eight.
Staten led everyone with 20 points – 13 of those coming in the second half – and Williams finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds despite missing his first 11 shots and finishing the game 3 of 14 from the floor.
“Wanny made some plays in the second half and Devin made some plays in the second half and our pressure wore them down,” said Huggins.
WVU’s other starting big, Jonathan Holton, also struggled through a 1-of-9 shooting performance and finished the game with just 2 points.
Holton and Williams weren’t the only ones struggling to find their shooting stroke: freshman Daxter Miles Jr. was 1 of 7 from the floor, junior Jevon Carter was 0 for 5 and senior Gary Browne finished 2 of 7.
Deon Jones led Monmouth with 14 points while Andrew Nicholas came off the bench to score 10. The Hawks turned the ball over 24 times and finished the game shooting 44.7 percent.
“We did a better job of guarding them in the second half,” said Huggins. “But our post guys have got to do a better job of guarding the bounce and if we’re going to play like this (struggle offensively) we can't take plays off.”
The Mountaineers (1-0) were playing today’s game without Brandon Watkins, who sat on the bench with an undisclosed illness and BillyDee Williams, who is sidelined indefinitely now after suffering a fracture to the orbital bone of the right eye during Thursday’s practice.
“We’ve just got to keep fighting the fight and keep getting better,” said Huggins.
“We’ve got good guys and sometimes you just put too much pressure on yourself,” he added. “We’ve got guys sitting in there crying because they know how bad they were and that’s good. It means you care.”
West Virginia has a quick turnaround playing Lafayette, which beat Robert Morris by 27 in Moon Township earlier tonight, on Sunday afternoon.
That game will tip off at 3 p.m. and will be televised on ROOT Sports.
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