Jevon is On, WVU Routs Sooners
January 13, 2015 09:44 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia got a strong performance from its bench to knock off 18th-ranked Oklahoma 86-65 Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
The victory was the Mountaineers’ second over a nationally ranked team this year - UConn was ranked when West Virginia defeated the Huskies in Puerto Rico..
Freshman guard Jevon Carter came off the bench to score 18 points, grab seven rebounds and make three steals, and Nathan Adrian snapped out of his shooting funk with 11 points, including scoring seven during a key early stretch early in the first half that helped the Mountaineers build a double-digit lead.
West Virginia (15-2, 3-1) used a 10-0 run at the end of the half to take a 13-point lead into the locker room. The Mountaineers enjoyed a double-digit advantage for the remainder of the game, the lead swelling to as many as 24 with 1:29 remaining.
“I was very, very pleased with our effort,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
"The game was dictated from start to finish by West Virginia. I thought they did a terrific job with their pressure and we didn’t handle that very well," said Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger. "Two things you have to do against a team that’s playing like that and playing so well is handle the pressure and try to limit their offensive rebounding, and we didn’t do either. The final score is not a surprise since we didn’t do either of those things and West Virginia played great."
In fact, West Virginia’s bench performed so well that the Mountaineers didn’t need preseason Big 12 player of the year Juwan Staten’s scoring, the senior scoring his first points at the free throw line with 6:37 remaining and finishing tonight’s game with just 4 points, 12 below his season average coming in. Staten did hand out eight assists.
Sophomore Devin Williams, coming off a 14-point, 15-rebound, double-double in Saturday’s loss to Iowa State, had 14 points and 11 boards against the Sooners.
West Virginia had a 42-35 advantage on the glass and forced the Sooners into committing 22 turnovers – 16 of those coming on Mountaineer steals.
“We were much more active,” said Huggins. “We got to the ball so much better.”
WVU took 18 more shots than Oklahoma – a recurring theme for the Mountaineers this year – but unlike Saturday’s loss to Iowa State, West Virginia made a much higher percentage of them tonight (44.1 percent)
Eleven different players scored for the Mountaineers. At one point in the second half West Virginia’s bench had scored as many points as Oklahoma had as a team.
Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield led everyone with 21 points, nine of those coming from 3. Isaiah Cousins added 14.
“The hard thing in this league is the coaching is so good and they got us spread out in the first half and I was a little bit worried about our pressure being so spread out,” said Huggins. “You can’t turn them over will ball pressure because their spacing is so good and they attacked us.
“I thought our ball pressure created some things and I thought we made them play faster than they normally play,” added Huggins.
Huggins earned win No. 755 of his career to tie him with Hank Iba for 13th place on the NCAA’s all-time win list.
The Mountaineers are back out on the road this Saturday to play 10th-ranked Texas in Austin in a game that will be televised nationally on ESPN.
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