WVU's Bigs Come Up Big
February 24, 2015 10:15 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia got 26 points and 13 rebounds from forwards Devin Williams and Jonathan Holton to power the 20th-ranked Mountaineers to a 71-64 victory over Texas Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
Before an enthusiastic midweek crowd of 12,048 that included Tyler County resident Nicholas Wince, who spent the day with the team as part of Make-a-Wish Foundation, West Virginia jumped out to an early 18-point lead behind the inside play of Holton and Williams.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said he was particularly pleased with the way Williams responded tonight after scoring just 7 points and grabbing five rebounds the first time these two teams played back in January.
“He’s a man. He rebounded and scored in traffic, and he made free throws,” said Huggins. “He really passed the ball. We got it to him in the middle of the floor and he collapsed on them. He made a lot of good passes in the post.”
The two combined to score 12 points in the first half, Holton banging down a big 3 to give the Mountaineers their biggest lead of the game at 18 with 3:49 remaining.
But the offense came to a screeching halt against the same 2-3 zone defense West Virginia has seen now for the last two months (and will see again on Saturday at Baylor).
Missed 3s by Daxter Miles Jr. and Chase Connor (three) allowed Texas to reduce its deficit to 11 at halftime.
Besides a Miles layup with 1:54 to go, the only other point West Virginia scored during the remainder of the half came at the free throw line Williams when Jonathan Holmes caught him with an elbow and was tossed from the game with 20.5 seconds remaining.
Early in the second half, Texas (17-11, 6-9) continued to chip away at West Virginia’s lead, getting it to nine at 18:27, then to eight at 17:53, then to six at 17:15 and then finally to two with 13:36 to go on a Prince Ibeh free throw.
Freshman Jevon Carter ended the long drought with a 3 and Juwan Staten added a driving layup to push the Mountaineers’ lead back to seven, 45-38.
A 3 from Miles with 9:20 made it a 10-point game, 50-40, and another 3 from Holton from the corner pushed the margin back to 13 with 8:03 left.
Once again, however, Texas used a run to whittle down West Virginia’s lead to five with 5:27 to go before Miles answered with a breakaway dunk.
The Mountaineers’ advantage was back to 10 with 1:38 left on two Gary Browne free throws, but then things got interesting when Holton fouled Myles Turner while attempting to rebound Devin Williams’ missed free throw to send Turner to the line with the clock stopped. Another Holton foul 14 seconds later, this time against Isaiah Taylor as he scored going to the basket, gave Taylor a chance to make it a four-point game with 1:04 left, which he did.
At this point Kendal Yancey fouled Williams as WVU got the ball in play to put the 66.2 percent free throw shooter on the line. Williams sank both and then nailed two more with 42 seconds remaining to keep it a two-possession game.
For the night, West Virginia made 20 of 23 from the free throw line and also outscored the Longhorns in the paint 28-24.
In the last four games against Texas – all losses – the Longhorn bigs completely dominated West Virginia’s front line but tonight the Mountaineers more than held their own.
Freshman guards Miles Jr. (12 points) and Carter (10) also had big nights for West Virginia.
Texas, which shot a sizzling 73.3 percent in the first half and 52.5 percent for the game, got 14 points off the bench from Holland and 13 from Taylor.
When the Longhorns got past West Virginia’s half-court traps they were able to knock down their open looks, especially in the first half.
“I think West Virginia caused a lot of turnovers early,” said Texas coach Rick Barnes. “We didn’t bring the ball down the floor the way we wanted to early, there was too much dribbling. When you get double-teamed you need to pass it because it means someone is open, and we need to do a better job of that.”
The Longhorns cooled off when Huggins chose to take off the press and use a 1-1-3 zone he said he has been working on for the last couple of weeks to try and steal a few possessions.
It worked tonight.
“I think we got three stops in a row or four out of five,” he said. “We did a better job rebounding than what we have when we tried to play the zone in the past. I don’t know how much we’re going to do it. We will when we need to, obviously, but I like
what we’re doing.”
West Virginia (22-6, 10-5) remains in the hunt for the Big 12 title with remaining games at Baylor, Kansas and back at the Coliseum against Oklahoma State to conclude the regular season.
The Mountaineers are now ½ game behind Iowa State for second place in the conference standings and one game behind the league-leading Jayhawks.
Earlier tonight, it was announced that West Virginia’s regular season finale against Oklahoma State is sold out.
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