Staten's 24 Leads WVU Over NC State
December 21, 2014 01:06 AM | General
Juwan Staten played like the best point guard in the country and his coach collected win No. 750 as 20th-ranked West Virginia knocked off NC State 83-69 tonight in the Gotham Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Staten scored 24 points, including his 1,000th career point as a Mountaineer player, and handed out six assists while Bob Huggins is now seven wins shy of passing Hank Iba for 13th place on the NCAA all-time victory list. West Virginia’s 10-1 record to begin the year is the Mountaineers’ best start since reaching the Final Four in 2010.
“Wanny was Wanny again,” said Huggins. “He was very, very good.”
Tonight, West Virginia had its best shooting performance of the season, knocking down 31 of 58 overall, including a season-high seven 3-pointers.
Jonathan Holton, who came into tonight’s game shooting just 12 percent from 3, nailed two big triples late in the second half, his first coming with 3:49 left from the corner to expand West Virginia’s lead to nine.
His second 3 with 1:16 left gave the Mountaineers a 14-point cushion.
The game began as a foulfest and Huggins drew a technical foul arguing a call during the under-eight timeout when the Mountaineers were leading 18-16.
Ralston Turner missed both free throws – a recurring theme for the Wolfpack tonight. Huggins explained his technical foul afterward.
“I wasn’t trying to get our guys going – I thought our guys were alright, I was trying to help the other three at that point in time,” he said. “It was different.”
Following the Huggins T, the Mountaineers went on a 19-6 run to take control of the basketball game. Staten got things going with a short jumper, Holton followed with a dunk, Staten got free for another jumper, Williams converted one close, then came two Staten free throws and another basket from Williams to give WVU a 10-point lead.
“Dev made some huge shots for us when we were kind of struggling to score points at the start of the second half,” said Huggins.
Jaysean Paige contributed back-to-back baskets when he tipped in Brandon Watkins’ miss and then nailed a 3 off an assist from Staten, and the Mountaineers finished the first half with a Jevon Carter 3 from the corner that banked in.
NC State (9-3) scored 11 of the first 14 points of the second half to reduce its deficit to one, 44-43, on a Trevor Lacey 3, but Staten eventually answered with a pull-up jumper.
The last 10 minutes of the game were perhaps West Virginia’s most effective stretch of offense this season, particularly inside of four minutes when WVU had the lead and was able to keep the ball in Staten’s hands with the floor spread. Staten had a hand in 10 of West Virginia’s final 11 points either by scoring himself or dishing off to a wide open teammate.
Devin Williams also played well tonight, finishing with 16 points and a game-high eight rebounds. Williams made six of his 11 field goal attempts and also grabbed six defensive rebounds.
Paige came off the bench to contribute 11.
“This was really a good team win,” Huggins said. “We get 11 minutes from Brandon (Watkins), we get 15 minutes from Elijah (Macon) and that’s what we’ve got to have.”
West Virginia’s bench gave them 30 points tonight for a 19-point advantage.
“That says a lot about our depth. I think at one point they had shot 15 free throws and we had shot two,” said Huggins. “There are times when I expect them to shoot more free throws than us because of the way we’re playing but I didn’t expect that disparity.”
West Virginia made 10 steals and forced the Wolfpack to turn the ball over 23 times to offset State’s 55.6 percent shooting from the floor, including making 8 of 14 from 3.
“They shoot 55.6 percent from the field, they shoot 63 percent in the second half and they lose by 14,” Huggins point out.
Lacey finished with 24 and Anthony Barber added 16. State’s other big gun, guard Ralston Turner, finished with 9 – six below his season average coming into tonight’s game.
“Their good scorers struggled to get open (late in the game) because they were tired,” said Huggins. “They had to help break the pressure.”
West Virginia flies back to Morgantown tonight and will have just one day to get ready for Wofford, which beat NC State 55-54 two weeks ago and has an impressive 9-2 record to start the season.
The Terriers last played five days ago when they beat Charleston Southern 64-58.
Monday night’s game will tip off at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised locally on West Virginia Media stations throughout West Virginia.
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