Box Score SMU rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit to defeat West Virginia 70-58 in the opening game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off at Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers, Florida.
 
The Mustangs (4-1) used 11 players to eventually wear down Mountaineers and outscored them 45-22 after intermission.
 
West Virginia used a 2-3 zone and a combined 20 points from Jesse Edwards and Quinn Slazinski to build a 36-25 halftime lead. But the game turned during a five-minute stretch in the second half when SMU outscored West Virginia 17-5 to take its first lead, 42-41. The Mustangs took the lead for good at the 10-minute mark on Zhuric Phelps' driving layup.
 
From here, SMU built its lead to 52-47 at 8:04, then 58-52 at 5:26 and gradually 61-52 on Ricardo Wright's 3 with 5:04 to go. SMU's biggest lead was 70-56 just ahead of the game's final basket by Slazinski's with 20 seconds remaining.
 
Phelps led SMU with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Chuck Harris scored 12 and Wright came off the bench to also contributed 12. Keon Ambrose-Hylton added 10.
 
The Mustangs shot 48.3% overall and 60% (18 of 30) in the second half.
 
"That second half, I worried with the game plan I envisioned them having with their deep rotation, athleticism and the way they get up and down the floor and how we'd manage that late in the game," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "I thought we had a pretty good first half. We rebounded it well but to be honest, a lot of those shots they were taking were uncontested.
 
"They started falling for them in the second half and we weren't good enough late in the game with a short bench to match their physicality and the way they run out and try to get easy points," Eilert added.
 
West Virginia (2-2) got a game-high 18 points from Edwards, who made 7 of his 15 field goal attempts and only 4 of 9 from the free throw line. Slazinski was the only other WVU player to reach double figures with 13.
 
WVU left eight points at the free throw line tonight by connecting on only 13 of its 21 attempts, clearly a byproduct of being tired. In the second half, Eilert was taking timeouts simply to give his players some rest.
 
"That's where we're at with timeouts it seems like. I can read them and their exhaustion levels," Eilert said. "We're really only playing six guys with our backup freshman point guard (Jeremiah Bembry) being banged up the last couple of days."
 
The Mountaineers shot 37% from the floor, 31.3% from 3-point distance and committed 15 turnovers leading to 16 SMU points. The Mustangs also had a 19-11 edge in bench scoring.
 
"We really couldn't get our defense set because we weren't getting good looks," Eilert said. "We were going to control this game on the offensive end by taking care of the ball and getting good shots to get our defense set."
 
West Virginia used just seven players tonight with Seth Wilson and Patrick Suemnick coming off the bench. Wilson grabbed eight rebounds in 33 minutes of work from his guard position.
 
Tonight's game was the first-ever meeting between these two schools.
 
West Virginia will conclude its four-day visit to Fort Myers on Wednesday night against Virginia at 6 p.m. on FS1. The Cavaliers lost to Wisconsin earlier this evening.