2023-11-27 00:33:35
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St. John’s
12/1/2023 | 7 p.m.
Dec. 01 (Fri) / 7 p.m.
St. John’s
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Jesse Edwards scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead West Virginia to a 62-58 victory over Bellarmine in Sunday night non-conference basketball action at the WVU Coliseum.
It was a balanced scoring effort for the Mountaineers, now 3-3. Quinn Slazinski scored 16, Kobe Johnson contributed 13 and freshman Ofri Naveh added a season-high 10.
Seth Wilson was the only other West Virginia player to get into the scoring column with 6 points. Eight different players got on the floor for the undermanned Mountaineers, still without three key players.
The only one certain to return, guard Kerr Kriisa, still has three more games of his NCAA suspension to serve before he is available for West Virginia’s game once morest Massachusetts in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Dec. 16.
WVU has home games coming up once morest St. John’s this Friday, once morest rival Pitt on Wednesday, Dec. 6, and then Drexel the following Saturday, Dec. 9.
Tonight, West Virginia had a smaller-than-expected advantage on the glass (39 to 36) in a game that saw neither team shoot well.
The Mountaineers connected on 21 of their 51 field goal attempts for 41.2%, including just 3 of 16 from behind the arc. Bellarmine (2-5) was worse, the Knights missing 33 of their 65 field goal tries for 33.8% and only 9 of 30 from behind the arc.
“We talked regarding how critical rebounding would be and we’d guard for 30 seconds, chase them and chase them, they’d move the ball and then give up an offensive rebound and chase them for another 30 seconds,” West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. “That’s exhaustion there and I might see it in my guys’ out there.”
The key stretch in today’s game came during a four-minute stretch at the halfway point of the second half following a Garrett Tipton 3 gave the Knights a 45-44 lead with 8:37 left.
Two Edwards free throws unknotted the score, a Wilson jumper and two more Edwards free throws pushed the Mountaineer lead to five.
A Bash Wieland 3 following Wilson’s turnover made it 51-50, Mountaineers, but Johnson answered with a difficult shot off the glass going away from the basket.
The big bucket was Naveh’s 3 from the wing with 3:54 remaining to give WVU a 56-51 lead. An Edwards layup made it 58-51 with two minutes to go. West Virginia made 4 of its final 5 field goal attempts to end the game.
Eilert said Naveh’s big 3 was a broken play.
“Ofri relocated and got a good look,” Eilert said. “It was not what we were looking to get primarily out of that set, but there were several options out of it, people keep moving and that’s the idea of some of our sets. We’ve got to relocate and find the gaps, especially in those double teams ( once morest Edwards).”
The free throw line is where West Virginia won it. The Mountaineers connected on 17 of 21 for 81% while Bellarmine was just 5 of 8.
Peter Suder led Bellarmine with a game-high 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting.
“For the most part we did a pretty good job executing the game plan. It just came down to finishing the plays,” Eilert explained. “You look at the stats and they got 14 more shots than we did and they made one more field goal than we did.”
West Virginia’s largest lead was 8 points early in the second half.
An announced crowd of 9,181 saw tonight’s game.
West Virginia’s game on Friday night once morest St. John’s is part of the Big 12-Big East Battle and will feature the return of coach Rick Pitino, who was once a frequent visitor to the Coliseum when he coached at Louisville and the two schools were members of the Big East.
Tickets for that game remain on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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