Culver, Tshiebwe Lead WVU to Ninth Victory of the Season

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – In their last home game of 2019, the WVU Mountaineers defeated Nicholls 83-57.

West Virginia improves to 9-1 on the season and remains perfect in front of the home crowd. Nicholls drops to 6-5.

The teams played close throughout the game, WVU held a 39-31 lead at halftime and the Colonels came back to tie the game at 43 with 16:43 left to play. From that point forward, however, the Mountaineers took over.

After the game was tied West Virginia went on a 15-2 run powered by five points from Derek Culver and four from Sean McNeil. Culver finished the game with 16 points and 16 rebounds, McNeil scored 10 on 3-7 shooting. Freshman Oscar Tshiebwe scored his fifth double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds.

West Virginia’s bench chipped in 39 points in the game. McNeil (10), Mile McBride (15) and Taz Sherman (eight) led the way.

Nicholls entered the game forcing 21.2 turnovers a game, the fourth-best mark in the nation, but only turned the Mountaineers over 16 times. Culver (four) was the only Mountaineer with more than two turnovers in the entire game.

Former Mountaineer D’Angelo Hunter led the way for the Colonels, scoring14 points. Hunter played one season at WVU, 2017-18 averaging 5.5 minutes per game. Elvis Harvey Jr. scored 12 for Nicholls.

Senior guard Jermaine Haley entered the game second on the team with 24.8 minutes per game but did not appear in Saturday’s contest. Senior Chase Harler started in his place.

West Virginia’s next game will be on the road against Youngstown State on Dec. 21. Tip-off is at 1 p.m.