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Mountaineers Blow Past UL Monroe
December 13, 2015 07:32 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.VA. – Jevon Carter scored 21 points and made five steals to lead 14th-ranked West Virginia to a 100-58 victory over Louisiana Monroe Sunday night at the WVU Coliseum.
West Virginia, 8-1, recovered nicely from Tuesday night’s poor offensive performance against 10th-ranked Virginia in New York by shooting 51.2 percent overall, including hitting 15 3s for 41.7 percent.
Carter, Daxter Miles Jr. and Jaysean Paige converted four each from 3, while Tarik Phillip hit two of four from behind the arc – his first two 3-pointers of the season.
Carter scored 12 straight points during one stretch in the first half as the Mountaineers built a 33-point halftime lead. Carter had 19 of his game-high 21 points at the break.
“I thought we played pretty well in the first half,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “I thought we were getting to the ball better. I thought we were covering people a lot better and we took them out of what they wanted to run, which really what our goal is, and we finally made some shots.”
Miles Jr. scored 18 points on six-of-11 shooting, Paige contributed 14 points off the bench and junior forward Devin Williams produced his sixth double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
The Mountaineers attempted a season-high 84 shots – 41 more shot attempts than UL Monroe, playing its third game in four days. The Warhawks lost at Akron on Thursday night, bused up to State College to lose by four at Penn State on Saturday and then made the two-and-a-half-hour drive down to Morgantown to lose today’s game by 42.
Jamaal Samuel led UL Monroe, now 4-5, with 19 points. He was the only Warhawks player to score for the first 13 minutes of the game and finished the first half with 15.
Louisiana Monroe played its third straight game without leading scorer Majok Denk, averaging 18.3 points per game. He suffered a lower leg injury last week during practice.
Eleven different West Virginia players scored today, including backup guard Richard Romeo, whose two-pointer with 23 seconds left put West Virginia over the 100-point mark for the third time this season.
“Probably for a lot of reasons (UL Monroe) got into a 2-3 zone and it was a really packed-in 2-3 zone,” said Huggins. “They were just going to live with us shooting jump shots or die with us shooting jump shots and we were fortunate enough to make some. Then, you combined that with getting some things off of turnovers and getting some things off of the break.”
Tonight's paid attendance was 8,323.
The Mountaineers will be in Charleston for Thursday night’s Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic against Marshall, now 2-6 following yesterday’s 96-72 victory over Eastern Kentucky. The Herd defeated Eastern Illinois last Wednesday night in Huntington for their first win of the season.
Tickets are still available for this year’s Capital Classic and can be purchased by calling the Charleston Civic Center box office at 1-304-345-1500.
Thursday’s game will be the 44th meeting between the two state rivals with West Virginia leading the series by a 32-11 count.
The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU and will tip off at 7 p.m.
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