MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Deuce McBride bounced his face off the floor while diving for a loose ball.
Emmitt Matthews Jr. came up with the best dunk of the season thus far.
The first was painful only for McBride. The second was painful for Georgetown.
Both plays ended up being the keys to 11th-ranked West Virginia knocking off the Hoyas on Sunday, 80-71, in Washington, D.C.
With the game tied at 60, with just under seven minutes to go, McNeil was one-on-one with Georgetown’s Jahvon Blair.
The Hoyas’ senior guard had already lit up WVU for five 3-pointers and 19 points, but in this instance, McBride got the better of him.
First, McBride created chaos with a tie-up, that then caused the ball to hit the floor. That caused McBride to dive after the ball and bounce his head off the floor while doing it.
“When the game comes down to defense,” McBride began, only to be interrupted by WVU head coach Bob Huggins on the Zoom call.
“That word came out of your mouth?” Huggins joked with him.
McBride laughed and continued, “I think we know when we’re not making shots, we have to go with our defense.”
Blair still came up with the ball, but now the shot clock was low.
The Georgetown guard drove to the foul line and tried to pump-fake, but McBride wasn’t biting and Blair was called for traveling.
Moments later, Matthews had the ball on the wing and his defender was standing to low, allowing Matthews to take a dribble toward the rim and sky through the air.
“If I feel like my defender is on my hip and I can one dribble to the basket, I think every time I go my mentality is to go get it up on the rim,” Matthews said. “If I have somebody on my hip and I can see the rim in a one-on-one situation, that’s kind of where I want to get to. I want to be able to dunk every time I touch the ball.”
Matthews’ play gave WVU a 62-60 lead. Taz Sherman added a 3-pointer a minute later and the Mountaineers never looked back.
“I think there were a lot of plays in that stretch, but that certainly was a big play,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said of McBride’s defense. “There were a lot of plays in that stretch. Derek (Culver) went up and got a rebound between two guys and that was a man’s rebound. Emmitt had some plays, as well.
“Deuce knocking the ball in the back court, it forced them to take a hurried shot, which obviously got us an extra possession. That was part of the run that kind of put the game out of reach for them.”
Culver wanted back in
It only took the first three minutes of the game for Culver to pick up two quick fouls.
The Mountaineers’ 6-foot-10 forward sat on the bench for the rest of the first half.
Not that he wasn’t aching to get back on the floor.
“He kept bugging the heck out of me to get back in the game,” Huggins said. “I kept telling him I needed him at the end.”
Culver played 15 minutes in the second half and picked up his third foul with 16:51 remaining in the game.
WVU forwards Gabe Osabuohien and Oscar Tshiebwe also dealt with foul trouble, yet no WVU player fouled out of the game.
After picking up his third foul, Culver sat again for another six minutes. He still finished with 14 points and nine rebounds.
“I may have put (Culver) back in sooner than I wanted to,” Huggins said. “The whole game changes whenever he’s in there. He separates people and he keeps balls alive on the offensive glass and obviously he’s able to score it in there.”
Back to the Big East
Huggins spent five seasons as WVU’s head coach as a member of the Big East.
This was just the second time WVU played Georgetown at its on-campus facility. The first came in the 2014 NIT, a 77-65 loss.
“If you go back and look at our years in the Big East, any road win in the Big East was a great win,” Huggins said. “To come into a Big East school and win on the road; the last time we played here, we got beat by, it seemed like 100.”
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