Whaley scored 15, Cole 14 and Andre Jackson 10 for the Huskies, who drop to 8-2. Paulicap also gave WVU positive minutes with 5 points, three rebounds, a block and a steal in a season-high 19 minutes of court time. Osabuohien's line was 6 points, seven rebounds, an assist and a steal. "We're never going to play each other until maybe the (NCAA) tournament, so when you play a team like this once in a while you know you have to handle business. "It's not really a big rivalry game for us but in a way it was," Sherman added. "But he can do that because everybody is so concerned about Sean and Sean is smart enough to get out of the way." They were being chased the whole game and I thought Taz really stepped up at the end," Huggins said. "You've got to give Taz and Sean a lot of credit. McNeil contributed 16 on 5 of 12 shooting. Sherman poured in a game-high 23 points on 8 of 17 shooting. "That's pretty good for us," Huggins noted. Connecticut was +10 on the glass while West Virginia was -2 for the year, but the Mountaineers were able to keep their deficit to only four, 35 to 31. The one area that really concerned Huggins coming into tonight's game was rebounding.
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Two Jordan Hawkins free throws with 4:01 remaining put Connecticut back ahead 51-48, but a Johnson free throw and a Sherman basket after Johnson's free throw miss tied the game at 51.Īnother offensive rebound off a missed free throw by Osabuohien enabled McNeil to give West Virginia its four-point lead with 17 seconds left. "I think Pauly was a big key for us tonight," Huggins said. Paulicap's put-back basket eventually tied the game at 47 with 6:47 to go. West Virginia's six-minute scoreless drought finally ended when Bridges got a 3 to go down from the corner. Cole keyed the spurt with a pair of transition 3s, followed by layups by Tyler Polley and Jalen Gaffney. "That was down-in-the-dirt, grind-it-out, sit-your-butt-down and stay-in-front-of-your-guy defense."Ĭonnecticut, playing without starters Adama Sanogo and Tyrese Martin, were trailing 34-29 early in the second half before going on a 10-0 run. "Defensively, we haven't played that well all year," Huggins beamed. McNeil made 4 of 6, while Gabe Osabuohien was 2 of 8, Jalen Bridges missed both of his free throw tries and Kedrian Johnson and Paulicap were 1 of 2 each.īut the Mountaineers made up for it on the defensive end of the floor where they held the Huskies to 32 points below their season average. Sherman, an 86% free throw shooter, was 4 of 7. "You don't win many games going 12-for-27 from the line," Huggins said. The Mountaineers connected on just 12 of 27, and they needed every single one of the seven they made in the second half.įorward Pauly Paulicap's free throw with 3:06 left gave West Virginia a 52-51 lead, and McNeil finally got a pair to drop with 17 seconds remaining to put the Mountaineers ahead 55-51. What kept West Virginia from winning by more comfortable margin was its putrid performance from the free throw line. We do have some guys who are competitive." "If anyone ever questioned our competitiveness they ought to think twice. "That was an old-time, slug-it-out deal," said Huggins. Cole tried an unsuccessful 3 with two seconds to go that was rebounded by Dimon Carrigan as time expired.Ĭonnecticut was 3 of 21 from behind the arc and shot just 30.3% (22 of 56) overall for the game. "That was old-school John Beilein 1-3-1, although it wasn't John Beilein because I can't do all of the stuff he did, but we lined up in the 1-3-1 and really tried to pressure the ball," Huggins said afterward.įollowing a Connecticut timeout, WVU inbounded the ball to Sean McNeil, who got one of his two free throw attempts to drop. UConn's only basket was Isaiah Whaley's tip-in with seven seconds left, which reduced the Mountaineers' lead to 55-53. The veteran coach went to John Beilein's old 1-3-1 defense with two minutes remaining and his team leading 52-51, and what came of it was the Huskies missing seven of their final eight shots. – Bob Huggins dipped into his old bag of tricks to pull out a hard-earned 56-53 victory over 15 th-ranked Connecticut here before a raucous crowd of 12,045 at the WVU Coliseum tonight.
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