WVU Basketball
Dominant Start Propels WVU Basketball to Big Win in Season Opener
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Darian DeVries era of WVU basketball couldn’t have gotten off to a better start as the Mountaineers dominated visiting Robert Morris, 87-59, in the 2024-25 season opener inside the WVU Coliseum Monday evening.
Led by Tucker DeVries’s 18 points, the Mountaineers (1-0) dominated the Colonials (0-1) for nearly the entire 40 minutes.
West Virginia opened the game on a dominant 21-0 run. Robert Morris didn’t score its first point until DJ Smith hit a jumper with 14:13 left in the first half.
WVU’s defense especially got off to a blistering start, forcing turnovers on all of RMU’s first three possessions. WVU’s first three possessions were all DeVries, who hit a long-range three, dunked on the fastbreak and then hit another triple.
Point guard Javon Small got in on the fun with a pair of dunks, as did Tobi Okani, who caught an inbounds lob from Small that brought the home crowd to its feet.
West Virginia led 30-2 before Robert Morris was able to find any success. The Colonials pieced together a 15-3 run of their own, but it only cut the WVU lead to 19. The Mountaineers led by 19 for the rest of the first half, entering the break up 46-26.
Play evened out in the second half, but Robert Morris never put together the big run it needed to make the contest competitive again.
Robert Morris was never able to put together the big run it needed to get back into the game. Timely shooting by WVU broke up several would-be momentum swings by the Colonials.
A pair of three-pointers by Small ended an early RMU push. Back-to-back buckets by DeVries and Jonothan Powell pushed WVU’s lead to 29 with nine minutes to play.
From there, all RMU could do was keep the lead from swelling to 30.
DeVries’s 18 points led all scorers as he shot 6-13 from the floor and 4-9 from range. Small scored 15 points, finishing with a trio of triples and five assists.
Okani contributed 13 points while Amani Hansberry scored nine and pulled down a team-high 12 rebounds. Sencire Harris blocked three shots.
True freshmen Powell and KJ Tenner both impressed in their collegiate debut. Powell scored 11 points with three three-pointers and Tenner scored 10 with a pair of treys.
Josh Omojafo led Robert Morris with 13 points while Alvaro Folguerias had 10 rebounds. RMU turned the ball over 14 total times.
West Virginia stays at home to host UMass on Friday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
For a related story, what are reasonable expectations for WVU basketball this season?
