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WVU Wins, Now in Sole Possession of 2nd
February 27, 2016 09:19 PM | Men's Basketball
Jaysean Paige scored 17 points and Devin Williams had a 13-point, 15-rebound double double to lead 14th ranked West Virginia to a 70-56 victory over Oklahoma State Saturday evening at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
West Virginia (22-7, 11-5) used a 26-7 run between halves to turn an eight-point deficit into 44-31 lead with 15 minutes remaining in the game.
Torrid outside shooting gave the Cowboys a 24-16 lead with 6:16 remaining in the first half when Joe Burton got Oklahoma State’s sixth 3 to go down, but West Virginia answered with a 17-5 run to end the first half with a 33-29 lead. Jevon Carter punctuated the run with a step-back 3 just ahead of the horn.
Then, the Mountaineers scored nine of the first 11 points of the second half to push their advantage out to 13, 44-31, immediately following the first media timeout of the second half.
West Virginia led by as many as 15 with 7:11 remaining and kept its margin in the 10-point range for most of the second half.
“All they were doing to us (defensively) is what Louisville used to do to us all the time – play the three inside guys in the triangle and we’re running what we call ‘pop’ and they’re just playing it man-to-man,” explained West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “What we did was we went back to running some flex action and we had guys wide open. We need to find guys when they’re wide open – some of them weren’t great passes and others our guys just didn’t catch.
“When you going to face man-to-man you just run your man-to-man offense and it worked.”
Oklahoma State, which has lost nine out of its last 11, committed 19 turnovers and failed to score at least 60 points for the fifth time in its last seven games. The Cowboys are playing with a depleted roster that includes two of their best backcourt players, Phil Forte III and Jawun Evans, out for the season with injuries.
“They’re low on numbers,” said Huggins. “They don’t have subs and we made them work really hard. When your power forward (Leyton Hammonds) has to come down and help break pressure that’s not what he normally does - and that’s the whole philosophy of what we’re trying to do.”
Neither team shot well from the floor tonight; West Virginia made just 35.7 percent of its field goal attempts while Oklahoma State converted just 41.5 percent from the floor.
The Mountaineers had a 42-25 advantage on the glass and made 27 of 37 from the free throw line.
“For the most part, we shot it pretty well from the free throw line, Devin did a great job rebounding the ball on the defensive end for us today, and he and Jon (Holton), Nate (Adrian) and a host of others kept balls alive for us,” said Huggins. “That’s what we’ve got to do. That’s what this team has to do.”
Tonight’s victory, coupled with Texas’ comeback victory over Oklahoma earlier today, means West Virginia now has sole possession of second place in the conference standings with two regular season games remaining.
The 11 conference victories match the Mountaineers’ Big 12 win total from a year ago, and today’s road win was their fifth in league play this year – now the most by West Virginia since joining the Big 12 in 2012.
Williams moved past Drew Schifino into 44th place in career scoring and now shows 1,056 points. The junior also produced his 30th career double-double game in points and rebounding, including his 13th this season.
Huggins surpassed Lefty Driesell to reach ninth place in all-time wins in NCAA history with 787 and continues to trail Coastal Carolina coach Cliff Ellis by one victory; Ellis’ Chanticleers defeated UNC Asheville earlier today to give him his 788th career triumph.
West Virginia has one regular season home game remaining on Wednesday, March 2, when Texas Tech comes to town.
The Red Raiders have now won 18 games and are seeking to improve their NCAA tournament resume. Earlier this year, West Virginia needed some late-game heroics from Tarik Phillip to pull out an 80-76 come-from-behind victory in Lubbock.
Wednesday's game will be Senior Night for WVU’s three seniors Paige, Holton and Richard Romeo III.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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