Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sean McNeil scored 16 points and Derek Culver added 11 to lead 10^th-ranked West Virginia to a 65-43 victory over Kansas State here at the WVU Coliseum Saturday afternoon.
 
The Mountaineers used a 7-0 run to begin the second half to take control of the game. Another  17-0 run later in the second half helped West Virginia to its biggest lead at 25 with 3:03 to go.
 
Neither team shot the ball well from the floor, victorious West Virginia connecting on 41.5% of its field goal attempts while Kansas State shot 29.4%.
 
"I thought our rotations were better," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. Huggins is now two victories shy of 900 for his illustrious coaching career. "If they shot 29%, think what it would have been if we didn't give up all those point-blank shots around the rim."
 
WVU was six of 20 from 3-point range with McNeil making four. The rest of the team was just two of 11 from behind the arc. The Mountaineers did shoot 50% (13 of 26) in the second half, outscoring the Wildcats 39-21 after the break.
 
In the first half, K-State kept it close by clamping down on West Virginia and getting some point-blank baskets from 7-foot center Davion Bradford, who finished with a team-high 11 points.
 
"It was tough sitting through that first half, as tough for me as it was for everybody else, but that was a wakeup for us," Huggins said. "We need to do a little better job of starting games and a little bit job at times finishing games."
 
Guard Mike McGuirl, the hero of Tuesday night's upset win over Oklahoma, finished with 10 on 3-of-11 shooting.
 
Wildcat starting point guard Nijel Pak sat out today's game with an eye infection.
 
Huggins also chose to start Jordan McCabe instead of regular point guard Deuce McBride in hopes of giving McBride some rest with four games coming up in a span of six days. 
 
McBride played 23 minutes today and finished with five points.
 
"I just wanted to give him a little bit of a rest," Huggins explained. "He's played a lot of minutes and we've got a big week coming up here."
 
Culver's minutes were also reduced to 18 today, though partly because he got into early foul trouble.
 
Thirteen players saw the floor and eight got into the scoring column for West Virginia, which improves to 17-6, 10-4.
 
"In the first half the ball stuck," Huggins explained. "Everybody kind of wanted to do something with the ball without moving the defense. For two days we basically told them they're going to have 10 feet inside the 3-point line and 10 eyes on you when you have the ball and they must not have believed us."
 
Kansas State falls to 7-19, 3-14 after losing both times to West Virginia this season.
 
"We're making progress (defensively)," Huggins said. "We didn't get straight-lined near as much today, we did a much better job with rotations but we have to learn to rotate to the guy who is going to hurt us the most – not just to the closest guy."
 
WVU remains in second place in the Big 12 standings behind Baylor, which meets third-place Kansas tonight in Lawrence. West Virginia will face the Bears on Tuesday night at 5 p.m. before concluding a busy week with home games on Thursday against TCU and Saturday against Oklahoma State.
 
The Cowboys upset Oklahoma in overtime in Norman earlier today.