MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s long-range bombers were on target Wednesday night.
It went to the tune of WVU shooting 55.2% from the floor — the fourth time this season the Mountaineers shot better than 55% this season — as the Mountaineers ran past Navy 85-64 in front of 10,277 fans inside the Coliseum.
Tre Mitchell and Erik Stevenson combined for six 3-pointers and WVU had 11 in all, as the game looked more like an AAU game in the first half, before the Mountaineers (7-2) settled down defensively in the second half.
“I didn’t see a whole lot of good,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “We’ve got so far to go. We’re talented enough, but when you take a whole bunch of guys and try to put them together into a team, it’s a lot more difficult than what people think it is. We’ve got a lot of areas we’ve got to get better at.”
Navy’s 2-3 zone left holes around the foul line and at the 3-point line, and WVU took advantage.
Mitchell finished with 19 points, beginning his night with a three from the corner, but also added in some foul-line jumpers and a drive along the baseline for a dunk.
“We have our plays against the zone, and if we run them, they’re pretty efficient and they work,” Mitchell said. “Me, I guess I was more focused on getting to the high post, where I could turn and shoot it or get it out to one of my dudes, who were going to knock it down.”
Navy (5-4) hung around with its own 3-point shooting and its ability to make shots — freshman Austin Benigni finished with 20 points — against a WVU defense that was relying on its offense to set the pace.
“It’s happened to us where we play pretty well and we get happy,” Huggins said. “We don’t continue to bear down. We come out and run things really well, run things hard and then we just kind of stop.”
Looking to rebound from its loss last week against Xavier in the Big East-Big 12 Battle, the Mountaineers didn’t win many style points against the Midshipmen.
But, WVU continues to show that it can be a team that will make shots and go on offensive runs not seen in Morgantown for a while.
The Mountaineers will wake up today as the top-shooting team in the Big 12, just under 50% for the season and is second in the conference in 3-point goals.
Much of that is on Stevenson and Mitchell, who combined for 25 points by halftime. Stevenson finished with 13 points and seven rebounds.
“It’s not our offense, it’s our defense,” Stevenson said. “We’ve got to get so much better defensively, especially on the ball and with our rotations.
“We talk about it. We know what we’re doing. We mentally know what to do. It’s just a matter of going out there and doing it.”
Kedrian Johnon added 11 points and a career-high seven assists and Joe Toussaint added 12 points and seven more assists.
WVU’s 22 assists were a season high and the most since Dec. 13, 2020 against Richmond.
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