Mountaineers Muscle Their Way Past Hoyas
West Virginia defeated old Big East rival Georgetown on Sunday evening 80-71 in the Big 12/Big East battle to move to 4-1 on the season.
The Mountaineers came out a little flat offensively with their first four possessions resulting in two turnovers and two missed shots. Georgetown jumped out to a 5-0 lead thanks to an inside shot from Qudus Wahab and three-pointer from Jamorko Pickett. West Virginia finally found their footing and went on a 9-2 run that was fueled by forcing a couple of turnovers on the defensive end that were finished off by Emmitt Matthews on the other side of the floor.
Getting in foul trouble early in games has become a bit of a problem for West Virginia's bigs and that was the case this evening as Culver picked up his 2nd foul seven minutes into the game. Georgetown had a lot of success early with ball screens, which created space for shots, including a three ball from Donald Carey to put Georgetown up 17-15 just seconds prior to the under 12 timeout.
Around the eight minute mark, Oscar Tshiebwe picked up his 2nd foul of the evening, forcing Bob Huggins to go with Gabe Osabuohien and true freshman Isaiah Cottrell. With the two bigs being in foul trouble, the Mountaineers fell in love with the three ball despite being cold from beyond the arc. Georgetown capitalized on the Mountaineers' poor shot selection and went on a 10-3 run to take a four-point lead.
In the final minute of the first half, West Virginia pitched it underneath to Osabuohien who had great position to lay it in but a missed foul call led to a missed shot. The Hoyas' Chudier Bile hit a wide open three from the top of the key with just seconds remaining. Miles McBride quickly took the inbound and drove the length of the floor and drew a foul with .09 seconds on the clock. McBride sunk both shots from the charity stripe but the Mountaineers trailed 34-32 at the half.
West Virginia changed their offensive approach in the 2nd half by attacking the basket more and punching it inside to their bigs. Playing bully ball seemed to work but on the defensive end of the floor, West Virginia was giving the Hoyas way too many open looks. There was one possession where Tshiebwe didn't run the floor like he should have and got beat in transition for an easy basket.
Georgetown extended their lead out to 50-44, but McBride hit a wide open three which was followed up by a steal from Osabuohien leading to a dunk from Tshiebwe to bring the game back within one. A few minutes later, McBride came up with a steal on the defensive end and tossed up a beautiful dish for Emmitt Matthews to slam it in for the alley-oop.
The Mountaineers' 10-0 run ended shortly after the dunk off of a made three from Bile.
With the game knotted up at 60 a piece, Emmitt Matthews Jr. went back to driving the ball and throw down yet another fierce dunk to get the lead back. On the next West Virginia possession, Jordan McCabe found a wide open Taz Sherman for three to push the lead to three. With under five minutes on the clock, the Mountaineers wanted to try and get a stranglehold on the game so they went to Culver on back-to-back possessions - one resulting in a pair of free throws, the other a strong lay in under the hoop. Georgetown head coach Patrick Ewing saw West Virginia gaining momentum and wanted to try and put an end to that by calling his third timeout of the game, down seven.
Unfortunately for Ewing, West Virginia was able to dominate the boards in the closing minutes to finish out the win over the Hoyas, 80-71.
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