Box Score YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Bob Huggins, ever the story teller, began his postgame press conference following today's 75-64 victory over Youngstown State with a tale about an inflatable cow he once used as a young basketball coach at Akron to try and sell some tickets.
 
The point he was trying to make was young coaches sometimes have to do unusual or extraordinary things to create interest and enthusiasm in their programs.
 
Today's game was an example of Youngstown State coach Jerrod Calhoun using his extraordinary relationship with Huggins to bring a team of West Virginia's pedigree to the Steel Valley to help create some interest and enthusiasm here for college basketball.
 
For the most part, the 3,614 who showed up today at the Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown remained very interested throughout, thanks to Calhoun's scrappy guys.
 
"They came out and played more physical than what we had seen on tape and they came out playing really, really hard," Huggins said. "They just took the fight to us. We didn't take the fight to them."
 
The feisty Penguins led the 25^th-ranked Mountaineers 38-35 at halftime, and had them down seven after scoring the first four points of the second half.
 
But West Virginia finally stopped shooting jump shots and got the basketball to its two bell cows near the basket – freshman Oscar Tshiebwe and Derek Culver – and they responded with 19 and 15 points respectively.
 
Culver also handed out a career-high seven assists to go with a team-high seven boards.
 
Nine of Culver's 15 points came during an early flurry in the first half when West Virginia jumped out to a six point lead, while a sizable portion of Tshiebwe's damage occurred during a five-minute stretch in the second half when West Virginia finally wrestled the lead away from the 7-6 Penguins.
 
A Tshiebwe three-point play tied the game at 44 with 16:17 left, and his pair of baskets a few minutes later gave WVU a 58-51 advantage.
 
West Virginia, which made just 5-of-18 from 3 and converted only half of its 20 free throw attempts, finally got a 3 from guard Taz Sherman on the wing to give it a 65-57 advantage with less than five minutes to play.
 
Here, it should have been a matter of West Virginia holding onto the basketball and managing the clock for the remainder of the game but that's not what happened. Consecutive turnovers by guards Miles McBride and Chase Harler when Youngstown State showed full-court pressure led to four Penguin free throws to pull them to within three.
 
When the Mountaineers eventually got the basketball back near the basket to Tshiebwe, he responded with a baseline score with 1:34 remaining to put them up 69-64.
 
Moments later, two Jermaine Haley free throws with 1:14 left returned it to a three-possession game.
 
In the first half, West Virginia struggled to contain Youngstown's Darius Quisenberry, who got most of his 15 first half points off the bounce going to the rim. Quisenberry's drives opened up the wings for the Penguins to hit five 3s, two coming from Jelani Simmons.
 
Quisenberry, a 6-1 guard, finished with a game-high 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting. Backcourt mate Garrett Covington contributed 11 for Youngstown, which outrebounded West Virginia 39-38.
 
"They beat us to loose balls and they got a lot of long rebounds that we were kind of standing around watching," Huggins said.
 
The Penguins hit seven triples but finished just 20-of-55 from the floor for 36.4 percent.
 
"The stat that really shows up is free throw shooting," Huggins said. "We were horrible at the free throw line. That's generally an indication that your team is not fully engaged."
 
Jermaine Haley, who did not play in last Saturday's home win over Nicholls, scored 11 while McBride and Sherman tallied 10 each for the Mountaineers, now 10-1 with a big game looming against fifth-ranked Ohio State next Sunday in Cleveland.
 
"It's hard when you don't start the way you should to turn it around in the middle of the game," Huggins explained.
 
It will be just the second game for West Virginia during a 15-day stretch leading into Big 12 play at Kansas on Jan. 4.
 
Had Huggins' team dropped today's contest to the Penguins, the veteran coach would have likely had a cow instead of telling a story about one afterward.