How Sweet it Is! WVU Advances to Sweet 16
March 22, 2015 11:40 PM | General
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Maryland simply had no answer for West Virginia’s full-court pressure defense or sophomore forward Devin Williams in the paint.
Williams scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and West Virginia’s press produced 15 steals and 23 Maryland turnovers in a 69-59 victory here at Nationwide Arena on Sunday night.
"It seems like everywhere we go people say, well, it's not pretty," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. "Well I think it's beautiful. I love it. I love the fact that we can not make shots and still win - still find a way to score.
"It's hard work. It's hard and it comes down to having a lot of heart," added Huggins.
After leading by one at halftime, West Virginia began to take control of the game midway through the second half when senior guard Gary Browne hit back-to-back 3s, and then Williams followed with a monster dunk.
Maryland guard Melo Trimble answered with a 3 to reduce West Virginia’s lead to three, 45-42, and Dez Wells added another basket inside to make it a one-point game, 45-44.
But shortly after that, Trimble, who finished with a team-high 15 points, got kicked in the back of the head by one of his own players while leaping to try and intercept a pass and he spent the remainder of the game with his hands on his head sitting on Maryland’s bench.
Tarik Phillip and Wells exchanged baskets and then the Mountaineers began to methodically build their lead, first to three when Williams got one to go down in the paint, then to five when Phillip followed up his own miss and then to nine with 7:15 remaining on a pair of Daxter Miles Jr. driving layups.
In the meantime, Maryland went more than six minutes without a field goal before Evan Smotrycz made a 3 with 4:51 left to end the drought.
That was the closest Maryland (28-7) could get for the remainder of the game.
"We came into the tournament with a game plan," said senior guard Juwan Staten. "We said all we have to do is get past that first one because we didn't think teams would be able to prepare for our pressure. Early in the game they were making good decisions and breaking our press. They were looking good but they were using a lot more energy than they had to use the whole year. So we knew at some point they would break. And they started slowing down."
In the first half, West Virginia was able to get off 11 more shots, grab nine offensive rebounds and turn Maryland over nine times. However, the Terps were able to stick around because of transition baskets, either by hitting open 3s from the wing or by going to the rim.
Five different Terrapin players made 3s in the first half and Maryland shot 6 of 9 from behind the arc for 66.7 percent while West Virginia was just 4 of 13 from 3 and 12 of 33 overall from the field.
The Mountaineers’ biggest lead of the first half was six, 16-10, after Staten made one of two from the line while Maryland’s biggest lead of the first half was four, 31-27, when Trimble could only get one of his two free throws to go down. The Mountaineers used a 7-3 run over the remaining 3:22 of the half to take a 35-34 lead into the locker room at intermission.
"I told our guys at halftime, you know, if you want to play pretty we're going to lose," said Huggins. "We've gotta do what we do. And they came out in the second half and did a pretty good job of it."
In addition to Williams’ 16, the Mountaineers got 14 from Browne and 12 each from Jonathan Holton and Miles Jr.
Jake Layman was the only other Maryland player to reach double figures with 10.
Maryland finished the game shooting 47.7 percent after hitting 54.5 percent of its field goal attempts in the first half.
"I think you gotta give West Virginia a lot of credit tonight," said Maryland coach Mark Turgeon. "They were terrific. The press was good. We weren't ourselves. We weren't very good tonight. I thought the first 18 minutes we really played well. And we weren't ourselves. Give them credit."
West Virginia (25-9) didn’t shoot particularly well (24 of 60 for 40 percent), but the Mountaineers were able to get off 16 more shots than the Terps and grabbed 14 offensive rebounds.
"Look at the stats. We get 16 more shots than they get," noted Huggins. "That's what we have to do."
The Mountaineers, which have won 24 out of 38 all-time against Maryland, will be making their sixth Sweet 16 appearance since 1998 and the third under Huggins.
West Virginia will face the tournament’s top-seed, Kentucky, which gets an extra day of rest following Saturday afternoon’s victory over Cincinnati.
"It's not another game because it's the Sweet 16," said Huggins. "It's the NCAA Tournament and it's one-and-done, so you just can't say it's another game. I just told our guys to make sure they know (Kentucky coach John Calipari) is going to have them ready to go."
The Mountaineers and Oklahoma are the only two Big 12 teams remaining in the tournament.
This will be West Virginia's third NCAA Tournament game against the Wildcats since 2010, when WVU last advanced to the Final Four.
RELATED LINKS:
NCAA Sweet 16 Ticket Information | WVU Sweet 16 Gear
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