Strong Second Half Lifts WVU
December 07, 2014 08:59 PM | General
A strong second half helped lift 16th-ranked West Virginia to a 67-42 victory over Northern Kentucky Sunday evening at the Bank of Kentucky Center in Highland Heights, Ky.
The game wasn’t as easy as the score would indicate for West Virginia, now 8-1. The Mountaineers shot just 30.4 percent in the first half, clanked in 4 of 10 from the free throw line and led the Norse 20-17 at halftime.
“We couldn’t make a shot, got out-rebounded, the ball didn’t go in and it got ugly (in the first half),” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
But West Virginia turned up the defensive pressure in the second half, did a better job on the glass and ran away with a 25-point victory.
The Mountaineers scored the first nine points of the second half to build a 12-point lead, 29-17, and another run at the 13-minute mark pushed the lead to 18 on an Elijah Macon tip-in basket.
Two Juwan Staten free throws with 6:23 remaining gave West Virginia a 21-point lead, 54-33, and the Mountaineers led by as many as 26 on two different occasions.
“We got our hands on some balls, got some easy baskets and got some numbers and scored,” said Huggins.
Holton was the only regular to shoot at least 50 percent from the floor (4 of 8) and he finished with 10 points and five rebounds.
Devin Williams and Staten shared top scoring honors with 12 points each. Eleven different players scored for West Virginia.
“I thought came out and created some offense from our defense but what really got us going was we rebounded the ball,” said Huggins. “I thought Jon Holton gave us a huge lift to start the second half just tipping in balls and keeping them alive. Once he started got it going he got more attention.”
Northern Kentucky, playing its third nationally ranked team this year, got 12 points from Chad Jackson and 10 points and six rebounds off the bench from Jordan Jackson. Anthony Monaco, the nephew of Huggins, hit a pair of 3s to finish with 6 points.
The Norse drop to 3-5 on the season.
West Virginia has a week off for finals before facing Marshall in Charleston on Sunday, December 14, at 4:30 p.m. That game will be televised locally on ROOT Sports.
Game Notes: Huggins said the team will take Monday and Tuesday off in preparation for final exams and will resume a regular practice schedule later in the week preparing for the game against Marshall … the Mountaineers had another double-digit night in steals with 10 and forced 20 turnovers … Coming into tonight’s game West Virginia ranked No. 1 in the country in steals with 116 … Northern Kentucky assistant coach Kevin Schappell spent time at WVU working on Huggins’ Mountaineer staff, “Schappy was over there screaming at everybody telling them where to go. I would have thought it would help our guys but I think we screwed him up because we didn’t know what we were doing,” Huggins joked … WVU announced earlier this evening that only upper level tickets remain for Sunday Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic in Charleston … those remaining tickets can only be purchased by contacting the Charleston Civic Center box office at (304) 345-SHOW.
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