WVU, Terps Renew Border Rivalry
March 22, 2015 10:53 AM | General
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(28-6)COLUMBUS, Ohio – West Virginia’s border rivalry with Maryland resumes later this evening when the two schools will meet in the third round of the NCAA Tournament here in Columbus, Ohio.
This time, a lot more than just regional bragging rights are on the line. The winner of tonight’s game advances to the Sweet 16 to play No. 1 seed Kentucky Thursday night in Cleveland, Ohio.
Maryland this year has come of age under veteran coach Mark Turgeon, now in his fourth season in College Park.
Turgeon’s first three years at Maryland saw the Terps make just one postseason appearance in the NIT with a pair of sub-.500 records in the ACC.
But this year, Maryland has put everything together now playing in the Big Ten with 28 victories, including Friday’s win over Valparaiso, a 14-4 regular-season record in its new league and a return to the Big Dance following a four-year hiatus.
“We have more length around the rim,” said Turgeon. “We have some pretty good depth and we have some pretty good defenders.”
Maryland established a school record with 26 regular season wins, comfortably defeated Iowa State in Kansas City earlier this year, and rode a seven-game winning streak into the Big Ten Tournament where the Terps lost to Michigan State in the semifinals.
Maryland (28-6) gets most of its scoring from a trio of players – 6-foot-3, 190-pound guard Melo Trimble (16.3 ppg.), 6-foot-5, 215-pound small forward Dez Wells (15.3 ppg.) and 6-foot-9, 205-pound junior forward Jake Layman (12.6 ppg.).
“I don’t think you can key on any one guy,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “Obviously they bring different things to the table. Dez is probably as good a penetrator as there is in the country. He does a great job getting the ball to the basket and attacking the rim and putting a lot of pressure on the rim.
“And I think Melo is terrific in transition,” added Huggins. “I think that’s where he really excels and getting the game to go at the pace that Turg wants it to go. (Layman) can shoot it and bounce it. If you can shoot it and you can bounce it you’re going to be a pretty good offensive player.”
In Friday’s win over Valparaiso, Maryland got 14 points each from Trimble and Wells, and 14 off the bench from freshman forward Jared Nickens.
Maryland trailed briefly in the first half before opening up a seven-point lead with 16:31 left in the game. The Terps led by six with 8 ½ minutes to go and still maintained a six-point lead with 4:28 remaining.
But Valpo was able to make a 3 and covert a driving layup to cut the Terps’ lead to one with 3:34 to go. The two teams traded points on three straight possessions before Wells made a big three-point play with 1:44 left.
After that, neither team could make a field goal for the remainder of the game.
As for West Virginia, the Mountaineers were able to make some shots at the end to hold off pesky Buffalo, 68-62, in its game earlier in the day.
West Virginia (24-9) never trailed and was comfortably ahead by double digits for most of the game until Buffalo caught fire, getting shots from Lamonte Bearden and Xavier Ford to go down during a two-minute flurry to pull to within one.
Buffalo eventually tied the game at 62 on another Ford 3 with 2:41 remaining.
West Virginia’s Devin Williams made a pair of free throws to put West Virginia back in the lead, and then Tarik Phillip nailed a big 3 with 28 seconds left to put the Mountaineers ahead by five.
“The only one who thought Tarik could make that shot was Tarik,” said Huggins.
Guard Juwan Staten, playing for the first time since going down with a knee injury against Texas back on February 24, scored 15 points and handed out seven assists. Williams led everyone with 17 points and nine rebounds.
Staten (14.5 ppg.) and Williams (11.5 ppg.) are the only two Mountaineer players averaging double figures heading into tonight’s game. Williams also leads the team in rebounding with an average of 8.2 boards per game.
“He’s such a terrific offensive rebounder and he scores some goals off the offensive glass, which kind of gives him a little bit more of an advantage in terms of being a little more consistent scoring the ball,” said Huggins.
Turgeon said his staff spent Friday night and early Saturday morning coming up with a plan to attack West Virginia’s full-court pressure defense.
“West Virginia plays a style that we haven’t seen all year,” he said. “They really don’t allow you to run much offense or do anything like that so we’ll have to prepare and get ready.
“We have different press offenses in and different things that we’ve done but at this time of year you just give guys some information and prepare them for certain things and hope you play well,” he added.
Turgeon said with the quick turnaround he wasn’t able to get his guys out on the floor and go through a full practice to prepare for West Virginia’s press because they need their legs for Sunday’s game.
“You don’t have a lot of time to prepare for all the things they do in their presses,” he said. “Something I never do but I did earlier this week was we practiced on press offense versus six, seven guys. I had a feeling it might come to this so we prepared a little bit earlier in the week when we had time to for West Virginia.”
Friday’s victory over Buffalo was West Virginia’s first NCAA Tournament win since beating Clemson in 2011. Prior to Friday’s victory over Valparaiso, Maryland’s last NCAA Tournament win occurred in 2010 when the Terps defeated Houston, 89-77.
Both schools have extensive NCAA Tournament histories, though.
Maryland won an NCAA title in 2002 under former coach Gary Williams and also made a trip to the Final Four in 2001. West Virginia has two Final Four trips in its history in 1959 and 2010.
This is Maryland’s 25th NCAA Tournament appearance while West Virginia has played in 26 NCAA tournaments.
Sunday’s game is scheduled to tip off at approximately 8:40 p.m. and will be televised nationally on TNT.
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