WVU Outlasts Marshall in Charleston
December 14, 2014 08:13 PM | General
Juwan Staten scored 15 points and handed out three assists in leading 21st-ranked West Virginia to a 69-66 victory over Marshall in the 2014 Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic in Charleston.
Jonathan Holton and Jevon Carter contributed 14 points each, while Gary Browne came off the bench to score 10 to help boost the Mountaineers’ record to 9-1 heading into Saturday night’s game against NC State in New York City.
WVU coach Bob Huggins, now six wins shy of Hank Iba for 13th place on the NCAA all-time win list with 749, was not too thrilled with the way his team played this afternoon.
“I just don’t think we’re the same team we were when we left Puerto Rico,” he said. “We’ve got guys doing things that they can’t do … accentuate the positive and stay away from the negative.”
Today’s Capital Classic was much similar to last year’s game when Marshall led late in the second half only to run out of gas at the end. This time it happened a little earlier with 11 minutes remaining and the Herd leading by eight, 49-41.
It took four minutes for West Virginia to erase Marshall’s lead when Tarik Phillip made one of two from the free throw line to tie the game at 51, and then two Browne free throws put the Mountaineers ahead 53-51 with 5:48 to go.
Browne, in the game instead of Staten for a large portion of the second half, added a big 3 at the top of the key with 5:24 left to answer Cheikh Sane’s two free throws for Marshall.
“Gary settled us down,” said Huggins. “Gary made some huge steals, made a huge 3 for us and I thought Gary was very, very good.”
West Virginia’s biggest lead of the second half was five, 65-60, when Nathan Adrian converted the second of two free throws with 1:22 remaining, but three Marshall free throws wrapped around a Staten missed layup attempt made it a two-point game with 25 seconds left.
Jonathan Holton’s two free throws two seconds later gave the Mountaineers a two-possession lead, 67-63, but Marshall answered with a big Justin Edmonds 3 from the wing after DeVince Boykins was able to penetrate into the lane and pitch it back to a wide-open Edmonds.
On the other end, Staten was able to hit both free throws with seven seconds before JP Kambola’s 3-point try to send the game into overtime grazed the rim as time expired.
“It was a terribly inconsistent game on all fronts,” noted Huggins.
West Virginia missed 12 free throws today but the Mountaineers did make them when it counted, going 7 of 8 inside of three minutes left with Holton knocking down four. Four of Marshall’s six misses at the line inside came inside of three minutes to go.
“I think that probably had a lot to do with who was at the free throw line,” said Huggins. “It was Gary Browne, a senior, Juwan Staten, a senior, and Jonathan Holton.”
Marshall (3-6) got 18 from Edmonds - or 14 more than his season average of 3.8 points heading into today’s game. Austin Loop contributed 13 and Ryan Taylor added 11 before fouling out with 23 seconds left.
Marshall shot 50 percent from the floor and hit 9 of 24 from behind the arc.
“They made all of their open shots and they did a good job of spacing,” said Huggins.
West Virginia shot only 38.6 percent from the floor, with 14 of its 35 misses coming from behind the 3-point arc.
The Mountaineers made up for it by forcing 24 Marshall turnovers and grabbing 21 offensive rebounds.
“We got them to turn it over but we turned it over seemingly just as much and for no reason,” said Huggins. “And we rebounded their missed free throws.”
An announced crowd of 10,749 attended this year’s game, marking the 16th consecutive year the Capital Classic has drawn more than 10,000 at the Charleston Civic Center dating back to 1999. The 2014 Eddie Barrett MVPs for this year's game were Jevon Carter from West Virginia and Justin Edmonds from Marshall.
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