After a grueling double-overtime game against Kansas State, West Virginia continued their solid play with a 77-66 win over Miami. West Virginia (6-2) was led by Darryl “Truck” Bryant’s career-high 27 points. With only two days after their thrilling win over Kansas State, Mountaineer Coach Bob Huggins wanted the game moved to showcase his team to a national audience.
“We did this because they couldn’t put it on national TV tomorrow; it was originally schedule for tomorrow and to get it on national TV we moved it to today,” Huggins said to MSN Sports Net. “We talked about it and I said we’re going to have to do this in the Big East. There are one-game preps in the Big East and we’re going to have to go on the road and come home and play, or be at home and go on the road and play so we might as well start getting used to it.”
West Virginia overcame a 37-35 halftime deficit to push their lead up to as much as 20 points in the second half. Bryant scored 12 of his points in the second half including going 5-of-7 from downtown.
“I thought the second half we looked like a pretty good basketball team,” said Huggins. “Defensively we played with a lot more energy and Truck obviously shot the ball extremely well.”
Deniz Kilicli and Kevin Jones were the other two Mountaineers to hit double figures with 18 and 12 points respectively. Gary Browne (9), Aaron Brown (7) and Kevin Noreen (4) added the other points for the Mountaineers. The Mountaineers went 15-0f-18 from the charity stripe as well.
Earlier this season, the Mountaineers have been decimated by their overwhelming amount of turnovers committed. Against Miami, West Virginia turned the ball over 11 times, four short of their season average.
Miami (5-4) led the majority of the first half, but just couldn’t get their shots to fall after halftime. An adjustment by the Mountaineer defense helped swing the momentum.
“We changed how we were going to guard the ball screen,” said Huggins. “We were going to push it into help, or we were going to hard-hedge it, which we hard-hedged it the majority of the year.
Malcolm Grant led the Hurricanes in scoring with 17 points on the night. Garrius Adams and Kenny Kadji each contributed 15 points of their own.
West Virginia shot a respectable 54 percent from the field and had a seven rebound advantage for the game (33-26).
The Mountaineers have the week off as their next game isn’t until next Saturday against Texas A&M- Corpus Christi in the Las Vegas Classic.
Photo Credits: All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks Photo
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