Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia got a season-high 23 points from Sean McNeil to defeat Youngstown State 82-52 Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
 
All 23 of McNeil's points came in the second half as the Mountaineers outscored the Penguins 58-29 after intermission.
 
In the first half, it was either the earlier-than-usual 6 p.m. tip time or the ugly Christmas sweater promotion by the WVU sports marketing department as the reason for West Virginia's sluggish start.
 
Whatever it was, the Mountaineers made just 7 of their first 30 field goal attempts and trailed for most of the first half. WVU got its first lead 15 minutes into the game and Pauly Paulicap's put-back basket with five seconds left gave the Mountaineers a 24-23 halftime lead.
 
"We didn't bring a whole lot of enthusiasm to start the game and they did bring enthusiasm and, of course, they were extremely well prepared," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who earned win No. 321 at West Virginia and No. 911 all-time. "It took us a half to kind of get going and start to play with a little bit of enthusiasm."
 
In the second half, it was all McNeil and Taz Sherman, who added 16 points on 4 of 12 shooting. Sherman's back-to-back 3s got West Virginia's lead to eight, 31-23, and from there McNeil took over. All 23 of his points came over the final 17:21 on 8-of-8 shooting to help the Mountaineers' to their largest margin of victory for the season.
 
WVU (11-1) also managed to hold its opponent below 60 points for a sixth straight game, the most since the 2010 Final Four team did it the same number of times during the Big East and NCAA tournaments.
 
"I really didn't want to full-court press but we had to full-court press just to get moving because we were very stagnant," Huggins said. "The whole idea of playing full-court pressure is you have to play harder."
 
That pressure led to 20 Youngstown State turnovers, resulting in 29 West Virginia points. The Mountaineers also cashed in the free throw line where they made 25 of 34 compared to the Penguins' 9 of 13.
 
For the game, West Virginia shot 45.5% (28 of 55) and limited Youngstown State to 33.3% (19 of 57) from the floor.
 
The Penguins (7-4) got 13 points off the bench from guard Chris Shelton and 10 from forward Michael Akuchie.
 
"We still aren't making rotations the way we need to make rotations but we are better," Huggins said.
 
Malik Curry came off the bench to contribute 12 points for WVU, while sophomore forward Jalen Bridges nearly missed a double-double scoring 9 points and grabbing a team-best eight rebounds.
 
"(Bridges) was our best player tonight," Huggins said. "He did a lot of things. He rebounded the ball, defensively he made plays, made steals, scored close and finally made the 3. Hopefully this will get him going."
 
However, board work continues to be an issue for West Virginia as the Mountaineers were out-rebounded 39 to 32. 
 
Tonight's victory was the eighth in a row for West Virginia and snaps Youngstown State's five-game winning streak.
 
The team will have a couple of days off for Christmas break before returning to campus on the 26^th to begin preparing for its two-game Texas road swing to start Big 12 play. 
 
"We're going to come back in the evening and start getting ready for Texas," Huggins said.
 
The Mountaineers will face the 16^th-ranked, 9-2 Longhorns on New Year's Day and then play at 10-1 TCU Monday night in Fort Worth.