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Press Virginia Wears Down Marshall
December 17, 2015 10:06 PM | Men's Basketball
Photo Gallery Final Stats
West Virginia’s full-court pressure eventually got to Marshall. The 20th-ranked Mountaineers produced 19 turnovers and held the Herd scoreless from behind the arc in the second half to pull away with an 84-67 victory Thursday night in Charleston.
The 17-point victory was the biggest margin for the Mountaineers since an 18-point win over Marshall in Morgantown on December 5, 1989. West Virginia’s largest margin of victory over Marshall in the Capital City was 16 points achieved three years ago on January 18, 2012.
Tonight, Marshall (3-7) hung around in the first half and actually led by six at one point by hitting its 3s – three of those coming from Austin Loop – but West Virginia was able to clamp down on Loop and eventually took control of the game.
WVU used an 18-3 run midway through the second half as its lead eventually swelled to as many as 23 points with 1:38 remaining.
Devin Williams, who sat all but five minutes of the first half with two early fouls, keyed West Virginia’s run with back-to-back baskets and then a Daxter Miles Jr. conventional three-point play advanced the lead to 10, 49-39. Consecutive buckets by Jonathan Holton and Nathan Adrian pushed the margin to 14.
“We started throwing the ball inside in the second half and that was kind of the turning point when we started throwing it close and stopped shooting jump shots,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
Jevon Carter led four double-digit scorers with 15 points on five-of-10 shooting; Miles Jr. contributed 14, Elijah Macon came off the bench to score 12 points playing in place of Williams and Tarik Phillip added 11.
West Virginia forward Devin Williams rips down a rebound during tonight's game against Marshall (All-Pro Photography Dale Sparks photo).
The key stat of the game was West Virginia’s 22 offensive boards and it’s 14-rebound advantage on the glass. Holton pulled down a team-high eight rebounds to go with nine points.
The Mountaineers shot 46.2 percent from the floor, or nearly equal to what they shot at the free throw line (54.5 percent) on their 33 attempts. West Virginia also turned the ball over 17 times, many of those unforced or the result of soft passes in the open court.
“We turned the ball over way too much,” said Huggins. “If we can get our turnovers to 10 or somewhere under that we could be a pretty good basketball team.”
Marshall missed all 13 of its second-half 3s and finished the night hitting just 23.1 percent from behind the arc. Overall, the Herd shot just 34.5 percent for the game.
Forward Ryan Taylor led Marshall with 15 points and six rebounds and he joined Carter as this year’s Eddie Barrett game MVPs, voted on by the media.
An announced crowd of 11,748 watched tonight’s Capital Classic.
West Virginia has now won five straight and nine of its last 10 games against Marshall.
WVU, now 9-1, returns to the Coliseum on Monday night to face Eastern Kentucky and then it’s off to Blacksburg, Virginia, to play Virginia Tech nine days later on Wednesday, December 30, before WVU opens Big 12 play at Kansas State on Saturday, January 2.
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