Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia made its free throws down the stretch to hold off pesky Akron 94-84 in front of 12,513 here at the WVU Coliseum tonight.
 
The Zips used an 11-0 run to trim West Virginia's lead to six with 10:25 remaining, and stayed in range with 1:57 remaining when Channel Banks' third 3 made it a seven-point game. Following an exchange of possessions, the Mountaineers' Derek Culver was fouled with 1:26 to go.
 
Last year, that would have been a big concern for West Virginia with Culver making just half of his free throw attempts, but tonight he hit both and junior guard Sean McNeil added two more 26 seconds later to build WVU's lead to nine.
 
Freshman guard Miles McBride got two more charities to go down with 28 seconds left, and two more from McNeil put the game on ice. 
 
West Virginia hit 10-of-11 from the charity stripe over the final 3:15 to win a game it likely would have lost last season.
 
Overall, West Virginia successfully converted 31-of-40 free throws with Culver hitting all eight of his attempts to finish with a team-best 16 points.
 
Jermaine Haley matched Culver's 16, sophomore Emmitt Matthews Jr. scored 13 and McBride added 11 points to go with six rebounds, four assists, four steals and a key block with 4:36 remaining when Banks appeared to have an easy layup.
 
The Cincinnati resident ended up playing 29 minutes off the bench - 19 of those coming in the second half.
 
West Virginia's bench was really the difference tonight as the Mountaineers outscored the Zips' bench 42-9.
 
Seven different WVU players tallied 8 points or more, and it was the bench that got double-digit leads in both halves. West Virginia had a 16-point lead right before the end of the first half and then got it to 17 with 12:53 left on two Taz Sherman free throws.
 
Touted freshman Oscar Tshiebwe got into early foul trouble and played just 12 minutes, the forward scoring 5 points and grabbing five rebounds. The Mountaineers began the game with Culver and Tshiebwe both on the floor, but quickly downsized when the Zips used the 3-ball to take an early 11-5 lead.
 
"It's a learning experience for him," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "He's never had to go out and guard on the perimeter and if we're going to play him with Derek one of the two is going to have to guard a four-man that will play a lot on the perimeter. He's got to learn to do that."
 
West Virginia (1-0) took its first lead on a Matthews Jr. 3 and never trailed afterward.
 
On disappointing stat was West Virginia's 37-36 rebounding margin, an area Huggins has said his team should be exceptional this year.
 
"We didn't get rebounds that we should have," Huggins said. "We should never play a non-Power 5 team and only outrebound them by one."
 
For Huggins, it was win No. 861. He currently trails North Carolina's Roy Williams for seventh on the NCAA all-time wins list.
 
"The biggest struggle as coaches is getting guys to do what they're really good at doing and the guys who do that are generally very successful in basketball life after college," Huggins said. 
 
Akron got a game-high 20 points from forward Xeyrius Williams.
 
The Zips fall to 1-1.
 
"I thought Akron played really well and I thought they played really hard," Huggins said. "They made a lot of hard shots and we gave them way too many easy shots. When somebody is making hard shots you can't give them easy shots."
 
West Virginia will have a week to get ready for next Friday night's Backyard Brawl in Pittsburgh. The Panthers earned an impressive season-opening victory over Florida State and will face Nicholls tomorrow at noon.
 
The Panthers also have a mid-week game against Robert Morris before playing the Mountaineers.