West Virginia 97, Alcorn State 62
Jones, who scored 20 of his 29 points in the first half, made 13 of 21 from the field and added 10 offensive rebounds to break Chris Brooks’ 20-year school record of 320 offensive boards pulled down from 1988-91. Jones, who also collected his 14th career double-double, now has 328 career offensive boards. “You can always get something out of this and I thought we played hard tonight,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We didn’t run offense in the first half; I think five of our first seven shots were 3s and we don’t need that. “I think we’ve got to shoot 3s but we don’t have to shoot five of our first seven from 3, particularly when you’ve got an opponent who is out-manned inside with Deniz and KJ’s ability to score the ball in close,” said Huggins. Truck Bryant added 18 points on 5 of 10 shooting; Kevin Noreen came off the bench to score a career-high 12 points in just 11 minutes of action while Deniz Kilicli and Jabarie Hinds contributed 10 points each. “Truck was terrific today,” said Huggins. “He played within himself, didn’t force things and he gets 18 points because he didn’t force things.” After a 10-10 tie, West Virginia used a 19-4 run over the next five minutes to take a 29-14 lead. The Mountaineers (2-1) led 44-28 at halftime. Another 14-4 run at the start of the second half built West Virginia’s lead to 56-32. The Mountaineers’ final margin of 35 points was their biggest of the game. West Virginia shot 48.6 percent overall, including 7 of 20 from 3. Freshman Gary Browne grabbed 12 rebounds to help West Virginia to a 57-35 advantage on the glass. WVU once again struggled handling the basketball by committing 16 turnovers. The Mountaineers came into today’s game averaging 19 turnovers per game. “You can’t continue to go down the path we were going down – you can continue to throw the ball around the way we are throwing the ball around,” said Huggins. “I think this is the first time this year we had more assists than we did turnovers.” Chris Brand and Marquiz Baker scored 12 points each for Alcorn State, now 0-1. West Virginia returns to action next Tuesday in Charleston against Morehead State. The Charleston Civic Center box office will be open on Saturday from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. to purchase your tickets. “The thing about Division I basketball, and particularly high major basketball, it’s a marathon - it’s not a sprint,” said Huggins. “We have tomorrow off, and then we’ll come back on Saturday and start getting ready for Morehead State.” Huggins said Morehead State is going to play a much different style than what his team faced tonight against Alcorn State. “They’re going to press us the whole game and they’re going to play the 1-1-3, the old amoeba that Pitt used to play back in the day,” said Huggins. “That will be good for us – it’s good for a young basketball team to be able to see a lot of different things. “The more things that we see, the more that we go over things, the more they will have a frame of reference and the better off we’re going to be down the road.” The game will tipoff at 7 p.m. and will be televised locally on the Big East Network. |
 Big 12 Championship Report 2 |
 Big 12 Championships Report |
 Harrison Musgrave strikes out 14 in TCU victory |
 Around the Horn with Randy Mazey |
 TCU Postgame: Randy Mazey |
 TCU Postgame: Randy Mazey |
