Mountaineers Improve to 4-0
November 21, 2014 09:12 PM | General
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - West Virginia got 15 points off the bench from freshman guard Jevon Carter and some solid second-half shooting to knock off Boston College 70-66 in the semifinals of the Puerto Rico Tipoff played at Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Tonight’s victory propels the Mountaineers into the championship game on Sunday to face 17th-ranked Connecticut, which held off Dayton earlier today.
“We got ourselves in a heck of a hole by 11 to that team and they’re good,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “When you play a team like theirs with good guards who control the game and you’re screwing around not taking care of the ball and not finishing, you’re going to get in trouble and that’s exactly what we did. We missed a lot of opportunities, especially in that first half.”
West Virginia (4-0) trailed the Eagles by 11 at halftime before catching fire behind the 3-point shooting of Carter and freshman guard Daxter Miles Jr., the two combining to hit four of seven from behind the arc.
“I have been trying to say that both of our freshman guards Miles and Carter can both make shots,” said Huggins. “They’re both very capable shot makers, they just haven’t made any yet. I can’t explain it. Today, they made shots. When Juwan got in early foul trouble, they both stepped up and contributed big time.”
WVU shot a season-high 54.5 percent in the second half (18 of 33) and was also able to hang on despite Staten fouling out with 3:49 left in the game and the Mountaineers leading by just three, 60-57.
From there, West Virginia scored five in a row on a free throw from forward Devin Williams and driving layups by Carter and Miles.
BC eventually reduced West Virginia’s lead to one, 65-64, on Olivier Hanlon’s driving layup. Devin Williams fouled Hanlon on the play, but the BC guard was unable to knock down the free throw to tie it.
Williams answered with a short jumper with 20 seconds left to put West Virginia ahead by three, 67-64, and free throws by Carter and Gary Browne put the game on ice.
Williams and Staten contributed 15 points each while Miles finished with 10.
“Today Devin played like I think Devin can play,” said Huggins. “Devin manned up today, but he didn’t do it until the second half and that was our problem.”
Hanlan led the Eagles with a game-high 23 points.
“We controlled the first half of the game, but things unraveled in the second half which is very disappointing,” said Boston College coach Jim Christian. “We had guys in foul trouble in the second half and we had a tough time guarding the ball and that’s what they are really good at so things just went south on us.”
The Mountaineers forced the Eagles into committing 21 turnovers for the game and also had a four-rebound edge (34-30) on the glass.
West Virginia attempted 13 more shots than Boston College, which was also a contributing factor in the victory.
Sunday’s championship game against the defending NCAA champion Huskies features two former Big East combatants. That game will be televised nationally on ESPN2 and will tipoff at 6:30 p.m.
“These kinds of tournaments that are kind of made for TV you have a tendency to attract great teams from great conferences and we’ve been fortunate to have been here in Puerto Rico four times,” said Huggins. “We won twice with Cincinnati, lost once with West Virginia and now we are back in the finals against UConn and we have had some great games against them over the years. I hope Sunday is just as good as some of the others, but with us winning it."
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