MORGANTOWN — West Virginia traveled 1,928 miles to Provo, Utah for an old-fashioned butt kicking Saturday night.
By the time No. 25 BYU put the finishing touches on its 77-56 victory inside the Marriott Center, the Mountaineers’ jet lag had turned into full-blown disorientation.
“I just thought in the second half, defensively, we didn’t quite have the same edge we had in the first half,” WVU head coach Darian DeVries said on his radio postgame show. “We didn’t have that toughness that we had in that first half and then it started to get away from us. The missed shots lead to transition and now you’re in trouble.”
The Mountaineers (17-12, 8-10 Big 12) were held to just 33% (21 of 63) shooting and were held without a single point over the final three minutes of the first half and the first five minutes of the second half.
That was all the Cougars (21-8, 12-6) needed, as they hit WVU with an 18-0 run during that time to take its lead up to 33-21.
That was only part of the problem.
On the defensive side, WVU’s front court had absolutely no answer for BYU’s 6-foot-6 center Fousseyni Traore. He came off the bench to score 20 points and grab 10 rebounds, getting both WVU bigs Amani Hansberry and Euardo Andre in major foul trouble along the way.
All 20 of his points came in the paint, where BYU dominated 46-22.
“We knew we had to play one-on-one in the post, because of all their shooting,” DeVries said. “The second half, he was really the difference. He broke it open. We came and doubled a couple of times, and they kicked it out for threes. That was kind of the dilemma we were in.”
Traore’s name may sound familiar. Last season, he came off the bench and dominated the Mountaineers with 24 points and nine rebounds.
The game tipped off at 10:11 p.m. on the East Coast — WVU’s latest start since beginning the 2012-13 season with a midnight tip against Gonzaga — and it ended about the same time kickoff was set in the German Bundesliga soccer league.
Both teams looked sluggish early. BYU, which has now won six in a row, went the entire first half without a 3-pointer. That wasn’t good news for the Big 12’s top 3-point shooting team.
Meanwhile, WVU made just two of its first 13 attempts. That led to a stagnant 6-4 BYU lead over the first five minutes of the game.
That pace continued for much of the first half, and when Sencire Harris scored on a runout off a steal with 3:13 remaining, WVU held a 19-15 lead.
It was all BYU from there.
“We wanted to do everything we could to keep it as close as possible and give ourselves a chance,” DeVries said. “We thought dictating the tempo throughout the game was going to be a big key to that. Unfortunately, we lost that advantage in the second half.”
WVU’s Javon Small finished with 15 points, but needed 14 shots to do it. Those shots did not come easily, and there was no help to be found.
The rest of his teammates combined for 32% shooting and no other WVU player was in double figures.
Egor Demin added 15 for the Cougars and Richie Saunders scored 13, as BYU shot 53% for the game and 60% (20 of 33) in the second half.
The Mountaineers now have a date in Salt Lake City against Utah at 9 p.m. Tuesday, where former WVU interim coach Josh Eilert will be waiting.
Eilert is now the interim coach at Utah, and he picked up his first win of the season Saturday, as the Utes ran past Arizona State 99-73.
