Defense comes up big in the end for West Virginia during 86-81 win over Rhode Island

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Jermaine Haley said it was a play call made on the fly Sunday.

Fitting, because every bit of West Virginia’s 86-81 victory against Rhode Island, in front of 10,973 fans inside the WVU Coliseum, looked like a game played on the run with both teams gaining and losing the momentum in a matter of seconds.

“It was literally something that was drawn up on the fly,” Haley said of his basket in the paint with 13 seconds left that gave the Mountaineers an 84-81 lead. “We executed. Miles (McBride) threw a great pass and (Derek Culver) set a great screen. It was a big hoop.”

BOX SCORE

The final 13 seconds were nothing but frustration for the Rams (4-3).

URI guard Fatts Russell had spent the first 38 minutes torching the Mountaineers with a season-high 32 points.

“First off, hats off to Fatts Russell, because I didn’t know he could play like that,” said WVU forward Derek Culver, who came off the bench to finish with his first double-double of the season with 25 points and 11 rebounds. “We knew he was good, but he had a game out there today.”

The last 90 seconds, though, and those final 13 seconds were a completely different story.

Russell didn’t attempt a shot after his drive to the basket cut West Virginia’s lead to 77-75 with 1:58 remaining.
In the final 13 seconds, Rhode Island coach David Cox tried to get him one last shot, but Russell had trouble getting around WVU defender Gabe Osabuohien and Tyrese Martin’s pass sailed out of bounds for the Rams’ 13th and final turnover of the game.

“I’m disappointed, because we came here to get the victory,” Cox said. “I thought we let it slip through our fingers. It’s disappointing.”

WVU closed it out with two free throws from Jordan McCabe with three seconds left.

“We were going to double him,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said of Russell. “We never really got in a situation to double him, because they threw it away, which really helped us.”

The rest of the game was a back-and-forth affair that the Mountaineers (7-0) had seized control of late in the first half with a 14-point cushion.

The Rams came right back to tie the game at 60 with 9:28 left in the game.

In between, it was a show of strength between the 5-foot-10 Russell and the 6-10 Culver — both wearing No. 1 on their jerseys — as Russell hit from deep and then drove to the basket, while Culver was the Mountaineers’ man on the inside in which the Rams had no answer.

“He got going and then I got things going,” Culver said. “We really didn’t stop him, but we stopped the bleeding, so to speak, when it mattered most. I felt like I had a good advantage on the inside. It was a great battle today, I felt, for both teams.”

It was Russell’s sixth straight game with at least 20 points and the most points the Mountaineers had allowed to an opposing player in the regular season since Buffalo’s C.J. Massingburg went for 43 in last year’s season opener.

“He’s just dymanic,” Cox said. “He just embodies Rhode Island basketball and the culture we try to establish.”

Still, the Mountaineers held a lead for 36 minutes and what Haley finished at the end in the paint, he began with WVU’s first eight points of the game that came on a backdoor cut, an offensive putback and two transition lay-ups.

He finished with 18 points and five rebounds.

Emmitt Matthews Jr. scored all 14 of his points in the first half and Oscar Tshiebwe added 11 points and nine rebounds after getting into foul trouble early in the first half.

“It really was a good team win for us, because we had a lot of different guys doing some good things out there,” Haley said. “Guys played well in different parts of the game, which was good to see.

“The last part of the game, we knew we just had to get a stop. Russell was killing us the whole game. We didn’t have our best defensive performance out there, but we got the stops when it counted. We were able to keep our composure.”

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