WVU Grinds Out Tough Road Win
January 27, 2015 10:17 PM | General
Tarik Phillip scored a season-high 12 points and West Virginia got points from 10 different players to grind out a valuable 65-59 victory over Kansas State Tuesday night at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kansas.
There is an old saying in sports – wins are never ugly - but this one was looking pretty unattractive by halftime.
Both teams were missing far more shots than they were making, neither team could hold onto the ball and it looked like the first team to 50 was going to win this one.
But the Mountaineers settled down midway through the second half and began to take control of the game.
“This was a well-deserved win,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “I told our guys I was really proud of their effort. We made some bonehead plays – quite a few of them actually – we didn’t shoot it very well, we didn’t shoot it from the free throw line very well, but we really did play hard.”
Nathan Adrian got things going when he took a pass from Gary Browne and scored close to give West Virginia a 42-40 lead. Jaysean Paige then took the ball away from Stephen Hurt for a dunk and that keyed an 11-3 run to give the Mountaineers a 51-43 lead with 8:44 remaining.
Kansas State (12-9, 5-3) was able to reduce the deficit to three on single free throws by Marcus Foster and Jevon Thomas, but the Wildcats were horrible from the line tonight, missing 15 in all. If Kansas State could have made half of the free throws it missed tonight the outcome may have been different.
West Virginia, too, made things interesting from the line late in the game when Juwan Staten missed three and Devin Williams missed two while the Mountaineers were trying to put the game on ice.
Three nights ago Kansas State couldn’t miss in the second half against Oklahoma State, the Wildcats making 12 of 16 for 75 percent. And at one point early in the second half it was looking like a replay with K-State hitting six of its first nine field goal attempts, but West Virginia’s constant pressure eventually took its toll.
“They were tired and the pressure does that,” said Huggins.
Kansas State ended the second half making five of its final 11 shot attempts and finished the game shooting just 36.7 percent.
West Virginia (17-3, 5-2) didn’t shoot well either (36.4 percent for the game), but the Mountaineers got up 11 more shot attempts in the second half and that helped provide the difference in the game.
Williams just missed another double-double with 8 points and nine rebounds while Staten contributed 11 points and three assists – most of those coming in the second half after he spent most of the first half sitting on the bench with two fouls.
“We had two starters with two fouls and I knew we were going to need Gary (Browne) and Wanny (Juwan Staten) at the end of the game and I didn’t want them to get into deeper foul trouble,” said Huggins. “For Gary to be able to guard Foster and handle the ball with strength at the end of the game and Wanny to run the show for us ...
“Sometimes people will look and see that Wanny had 11 points and have no idea what he did for us,” Huggins added. “He was terrific tonight.”
Marcus Foster led everyone with 15, while Wesley Iwundu contributed 12 for the Wildcats, which lost for just the sixth time at Bramlage in three years under Coach Bruce Weber. Forward Nino Williams, K-State's leading scorer in its last three games against Baylor, Iowa State and Oklahoma State, scored just 6 points and spent most of the game sitting on the bench with a bag of ice on his leg.
A crowd of 12,528 watched Kansas State turn it over a season-high 25 times.
West Virginia has already matched its 2014 victory total with four days still left in January.
“We’ve got to get smarter and I keep saying that but I’m thinking, we’re playing a whole bunch of new guys, we’re playing freshmen, and I look to Devin to sometimes do more than Devin can do because he’s just a sophomore,” said Huggins. “But he was really good in the second half; he was a man in the second half.”
West Virginia returns to the Coliseum to face Texas Tech in a key Big 12 game on Saturday afternoon at noon. There are still some tickets left for that game and those can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com or by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME tomorrow morning.
“We’ve just got to keep taking them one at a time and we’ve got to go and ready for (Texas Tech coach) Tubby (Smith),” said Huggins.
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