Thomas’ Inside Scoring, Huff’s Outside Scoring Pace WVU on Monday Night

Monday, November 17

Morgantown, W.Va.

7 p.m.

West Virginia University

5-0,0-0Big 12

Lafayette

1-4,0-0Patriot

Lafayette

West Virginia

Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks

Thomas’ Inside Scoring, Huff’s Outside Scoring Pace WVU on Monday Night

November 17, 2025 09:34 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: John Antonik

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Freshman DJ Thomas' season-high 25 points led West Virginia to an 81-58 victory over Lafayette Monday night at Hope Coliseum.

Thomas, a 6-foot-9, 225-pound, Allen, Texas resident, made 11 of 17 from the floor and all three free throw attempts while Honor Huff flirted with the school 3-point field goal record of nine held by Alex Ruoff.

Huff, who contributed 24 points, got all of them from behind the 3-point arc, including his eighth triple with 11:25 still remaining to give the Mountaineers' their biggest lead at 58-34.

Because Huff was shooting so well from behind the arc, making 8 of 9, that opened up the paint for Thomas to do his damage.

"I thought DJ did a great job of just being a recipient of them double-teaming and getting in pockets," West Virginia coach Ross Hodge said. "(Brenen Lorient) played a great floor game with four assists and one turnover and Harlan (Obioha) had two assists, and a lot of those were just DJ finding those open crevasses." For us, 19 assists on 29 baskets is incredible."

After his last 3, Huff didn't take another shot and West Virginia saw its lead dwindle to 12 with 2:12 left. But the final 10 points of the game were scored by the Mountaineers, now 5-0 on the season.

Thomas is the fifth different player to lead the team in scoring and the fourth different player to surpass the 20-point mark in a game so far this year.

Freshman Amir Jenkins contributed a season-high 9 points and Brenen Lorient added 9 to go with five rebounds and four assists.

Junior guard Morris Ugusuk had a solid all-around game with 5 points and a team-best seven rebounds.

"Morris just does so many little things and even in the first half, outside of Honor we were struggling to make some perimeter shots, he stepped right in there and made it," Hodge said. "He's bought in as much as anybody we have."

Lafayette, which falls to 1-4, was led by Andrew Phillips' 19 points. Caleb Williams chipped in with 16.

West Virginia was 29 of 58 from the floor for 50%, including 9 of 20 from 3-point distance. Lafayette finished 10 of 22 from behind the arc to help offset its 19 turnovers.

WVU had a 36 to 25 advantage on the glass.

The 58 points scored tonight by the Leopards is now the 27^th consecutive game a Hodge-coaching team has held the opposition to fewer than 70 points dating back to last year at North Texas.

"I thought our defensive intensity was pretty good for the most part, in the first half in particular," Hodge said. "I thought we some busted plays where they had some late shot-clock makes when I thought we defended pretty well but a ball squirted out and they got it.

"That was probably the most disappointing thing to me was we had so many opportunities for loose balls that we just didn't quite come up with," he added.

The Mountaineers now go on the road for the first time this year on Friday night to play in the Shriners Children's Charleston Classic at TD Arena in Charleston, South Carolina.

West Virginia will face Clemson in the first game on Friday night and will conclude the weekend with a Sunday afternoon game against either Georgia or Xavier. Friday night's game against the Tigers will be televised nationally on ESPN2. ESPN will carry Sunday's games.