MORGANTOWN — West Virginia walked out of the Coliseum with more than just a 75-69 victory against UMass on Friday night.
The Mountaineers just may have changed the perception of what this team can be along the way.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be our season whether we’re making or missing threes,” said Tucker DeVries, who scored 17 points. “Obviously on nights when you’re not shooting it well, we talk about that a lot.
“The nights you shoot it well, you should win by 30. The nights you don’t, you just have to find a way.”
That’s exactly what the Mountaineers (2-0) did against the Minutemen, a team that threw a number of different defensive looks throughout.
Still, WVU found a way to hold on. That statement comes knowing the Mountaineers held a lead for nearly 36 minutes, but yet an 18-point cushion early in the second half had dwindled down to seven with 2:45 remaining.
“We let up a little too much,” WVU guard Sencire Harris said. “We can’t let up like that.”
It also comes with the fact WVU was held to just six baskets the entire second half, while shooting just 25% from the floor over the final 20 minutes.
Those kinds of stats would have generally meant disaster for the Mountaineers in the past.
For a team — in Darian DeVries’ first season at the school — that was believed to live and die by the 3-point shot, well, the Mountaineers proved they can also get a little dirty and gritty.
“There are some positives to this,” Darian DeVries said. “You go 6 of 24 in the second half and shoot 25%, you don’t win many of those games typically.
“Finding a way to win ugly is a quality, too. It’s not going to be an 18-point lead every night and you sail off into the sunset. Some nights you have to figure out a way when it’s not going well.”
Amani Hansberry added 16 points and six rebounds for the Mountaineers, including a huge bucket with 2:16 remaining that saw the 6-foot-8 big man take the ball from the top of the key and work his way down close to the rim.
From there, he spun around a defender, threw up about three or four pump fakes before getting a short one-hander to fall that gave WVU a 68-59 lead.
“That’s credit to our coaching staff,” Hansberry said. “We knew coming into the game they jumped at a lot of pump fakes. They were ball hungry.
“I just saw an opportunity with an open lane. They were pressed up on me. I got downhill, threw in a couple of pump fakes. I was just keeping it simple.”
Javon Small had 12 points, four assists and four steals, while freshman Jonathan Powell had a hot hand in the first half to finish with 10 points.
WVU’s defense also played a key role. UMass guard Rahsool Diggins — he came into the game averaging 26 points — finished with 19, but eight of those 19 came in the final 16 seconds with a couple of desperation 3-pointers — one of them banked in —and an uncontested lay-up.
“He was coming off making eight threes in his last game,” said Harris, who was charged with defending Diggins most of the evening. “My job was to take those away. He did hit some late in the second half on me, but they were heavily contested.”
The Mountaineers held their own on the glass with a 36-34 rebounding edge, and WVU’s bench provided a 23-8 spark.
Not exactly the type of qualities you’d expect from a 3-point shooting team.
Darian DeVries, “is always telling us we have to be resilient and being able to take that first punch,” Hansberry said. “We have to fight back. Games aren’t always going to be clean. They’re not always easy. You have to be able to dig down and get some stops.”
