Mountaineers Dispatch Friars, 58-53
West Virginia played one of its most mistake-laden games of the season in the first round of the Big East tournament, committing an uncharacteristic 17 turnovers in a slow-paced game. Luckily for the Mountaineers, Providence had their own comedy of errors which gave WVU the 58-53 victory.
Joe Alexander finished the game with 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting, and was again deadly in the mid-range game. DaSean Butler added 17 points and 9 rebounds, but no other Mountaineer player made a significant dent on the score sheet as Alex Ruoff was the next-highest scorer with 5 points. Providence’s balanced offensive attack was led by Weyinimi Efejuku’s 12 points while four other Friars scored 8 or more. The Friars committed 18 turnovers and gave away at least eight points with mental errors, including Jamine Peterson’s two blown dunk attempts, a first-half offensive basket interference, and a late lane violation by Geoff McDermott on Alexander’s one-and-one attempt. Alexander initially missed the front end, but given the second chance drained both shots to put WVU up by two scores in the closing minute.
WVU did not look sharp. Darris Nichols played 39 minutes but still showed signs of being hampered by his ankle injury. Wellington Smith was plagued again by foul trouble. Huggins turned to walk-on guard Ted Talkington to play 11 minutes, while Joe Mazzulla who usually sees a large chunk of time off the bench, and has had two of his best performances of the season, was limited to 9 minutes mostly due to foul trouble.
The Mountaineers once again looked beyond the outside game as they hit only 3 of 15 3-point attempts for the game, including an unusually poor 1-of-7 performance from Alex Ruoff. Butler and Alexander were factors in the paint and in the mid-range as they combined for 33 points from inside the arc or the foul line.
West Virginia will look to find some answers and hopefully have played through any tournament jitters as they must face 4th-seeded Connecticut tomorrow at 2 p.m. in the quarterfinal round. They will definitely have to take better care of the ball and improve on their defensive intensity to avoid being routed by the Huskies tomorrow afternoon.
Tags: Joe Alexander, Da'sean Butler, Providence, Big East tournament, Ted Talkington
13 March 2008 at 12:11
[...] Virginia 58, Providence 53. Not the prettiest of games, and Alex Ruoff was cold, but they got the job done. Now the speculation season on Tim [...]