Box Score West Virginia used some smothering defense to overwhelm Florida 84-55 in its final game of the Phil Knight Legacy Tournament played at the Chiles Center in Portland, Oregon.
 
The Gators led briefly 8-7 before the Mountaineers put on a blitz that saw them make runs of 10-0 in the first half and then 16-0 early in the second half to take complete control of the game.

"Obviously, I thought we played really well," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "In the first half we got a little loose, but I think by and large we played pretty well."
 
WVU's 16-0 run spanned nearly four minutes early in the second half and turned a 10-point game into a blowout. The Mountaineers' largest lead was 31 points, 79-48, with 2:38 left. All 14 players who dressed got into the game and 11 got into the scoring column.
 
Forward Tre Mitchell led a balanced Mountaineer attack with 17 points, followed by Erik Stevenson's 15 and Emmitt Matthews Jr.'s 13. Matthews scored his 1,000th career point during Friday night's win over Portland State and now shows 1,014, which includes 362 scored last year at Washington.
 
WVU shot 50% in the second half to outscore the Gators 43-22 after intermission.
 
Florida's leading scorer, Colin Castelton, who came into tonight's contest averaging 20.7 points per game, got into early foul trouble and finished the night scoring just 3 points on 1-of-6 shooting. The Gators' other big scorer, guard Will Richard, tallied 8, which is six below his season average.
 
Florida (4-3) shot just 34.5% from the floor and 11.8% from 3-point range, the Gators missing 15 of their 17 tries from behind the arc.
 
West Virginia (6-1) also had its best performance of the season on the glass by outrebounding Florida 49 to 28. Forward Mohamed Wague was one rebound and two points shy of a double-double, the sophomore matching his season high with nine boards to go with 8 points. Mitchell grabbed eight rebounds and Stevenson hauled in seven.

"Rebounding has got to continue to get better and we've got to take better care of the ball," Huggins said.
 
West Virginia scored 20 points off Florida's 14 turnovers and converted 7 of its 17 attempts from behind the arc.
 
Overall, the Mountaineers shot 43.3% from the floor for the game.

It was West Virginia's first win over the Gators since 2002 in Charleston when John Beilein was in his first season coaching the Mountaineers. The game was played in the Capital City as a homecoming for Florida guard Brett Nelson.
 
Tonight's victory was for fifth-place bragging rights in this year's loaded tournament, won by 24^th-ranked Purdue over eighth-ranked Duke, 75-56. The Boilermakers, which knocked off West Virginia on Thursday night, 80-68, also defeated sixth-ranked Gonzaga by 18 points on Friday night and will likely make a big jump in the polls Monday morning.
 
WVU, too, could see itself with more top 25 votes after its two double-digit wins over Portland State on Friday and Florida tonight.

"You hope that this helps us nationally. Our goal is to go to the NCAA Tournament and win in the NCAA Tournament and the easiest way to do that is to get a higher seed," Huggins said. "We need to play like this all the time."
 
West Virginia will meet Xavier next Saturday night in Cincinnati as part of the Big 12-Big East battle. The Musketeers, also out here in Portland for the Legacy Tournament, downed Florida by seven on Thursday night before losing by seven to Duke one night later.
 
Xavier (4-3) concluded play earlier today with a four-point loss to Gonzaga and will face Southeast Louisiana on Wednesday night before its game against West Virginia.