Mountaineers Roll in Charleston
November 26, 2014 11:01 PM | General
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Freshman Jevon Carter has a pretty good leg up on Big 12 Rookie of the Week honors following his career high 28-point performance in West Virginia’s 103-72 victory over VMI Wednesday night in Charleston.
Fresh off their Puerto Rico Tipoff championship, the No. 21-ranked Mountaineers took a little while to get warmed up, trailing the Keydets by one at the second TV timeout of the first half, but a Juwan Staten 3 and then 10 straight points from Carter – six coming on a pair of 3-point jumpers – keyed a 27-13 run over the remaining 7:33 of the half.
“Pretty good,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins of Carter’s performance.
Freshman Daxter Miles Jr. also had a solid night in the scoring department with 12 points on 5 of 8 shooting.
“Those freshmen are very capable of having those kind of nights,” said Huggins. “They make shots. They can get it to the basket and they’re much more multi dimensional than some of the guys we’ve had in the past.”
In the second half, Huggins substituted liberally as West Virginia’s lead swelled to as many as 34 points on a couple of occasions.
The Mountaineers forced VMI into committing 36 turnovers – the most ever by a West Virginia opponent – while equaling the school standard with 26 steals first established back in 1953 against VMI and matched against Rice in 1997.
West Virginia has now made 85 steals while forcing teams to turn the basketball over 144 times, a major reason why the Mountaineers are now 6-0 to begin the season for the first time since 2010 when they won 31 games and made it to the Final Four.
West Virginia shot 51.9 percent from the floor, including a sizzling 56.8 percent in the second half, many of those baskets coming on breakaway layups and dunks.
Carter, who came into today’s game averaging 7 points per game, made 12 of 14 from the floor, 3 of 4 from 3, and hit his only free throw attempt for his game-high 28.
Staten contributed 17 points and six assists in just 21 minutes of work, while Jonathan Holton was West Virginia’s best inside player tonight with 13 points and seven boards.
The Mountaineers got an impressive 52 points from their bench tonight.
VMI (2-3) was led by Q.J. Peterson’s 13 points, although he also turned the ball over 11 times.
West Virginia has another quick turnaround facing the College of Charleston on Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum. The Cougars won their second game down in Puerto Rico by defeating George Mason 61-60, and have had six days to get ready for Saturday’s game in Morgantown.
“Charleston’s pretty good,” said Huggins. “They played very, very well in Puerto Rico.”
The game will tip off at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised locally by West Virginia Media.
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