Freshman Jonathan Powell Saves WVU Basketball on Senior Night

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU basketball celebrated its seniors on Saturday, but it was freshman Jonathan Powell who saved the day for the Mountaineers.

Jonathan Powell made a pair of crucial three-pointers down the stretch to preserve WVU’s lead in its 72-65 victory over UCF on Senior Day.

Powell’s three-pointer with 4:33 left pushed WVU’s lead up to nine points at the time. It was important because UCF then went on a six-point run that would have tied the game. The Mountaineers did not score again until nailed a corner three with 1:16 left that doubled their lead from three to six.

“Those were monster threes for us,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said. “That’s exactly what we needed.”

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Just a freshman, Powell has exhibited the confidence to make shots like those two on Saturday all season long.

“It’s just confidence, knowing the next one will go in,” he said. “I’ve had that mentality the whole season.”

Powell finished third for WVU with 15 points against the Golden Knights, shooting 5-for-8 on three-pointers.

“My teammates and coaches all put that confidence in me to go out and play my game all year,” Powell said. “It definitely feels good, especially for my last home game (of the season).”

Powell has been big all year for the Mountaineers. He was inserted into the starting lineup following Tucker DeVries’s season-ending injury and provided levels of stable and consistent play that are rare to see from a first-year player.

Powell scored double-digit points in exactly half of WVU’s game this season, 15. He finished second on the team with 63 three-pointers and finished a fraction of a percentage point behind Javon Small for the team lead in three-point shooting, 35.2%.

“He better not lose any confidence because we’re about to need it,” Small said. “He’s a shooter, if it’s an open shot and I know that I’ve made that shot 1,000 times, I’m going to shoot the next one. That’s what he needs to continue to do, shooters need to shoot the ball.”

Powell wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination this season and he had a few cold spells — he shot 5-for-23 over a five-game stretch just this month — he never seemed to hit the dreaded “freshman wall” and he was never hesitant to let it fly.

“He’s had moments this year where he’s been terrific and he’s had stretches of games where he hasn’t shot it well,” DeVries said. “What I love about Jonathan is he’s stayed confident in himself and so we stayed confident in him.”

That confidence to shoot no matter what kind of night he’s having has led to key buckets late in games, like on Saturday, but it also manifested in other ways, whether it was grabbing a key offensive rebound or helping get a defensive stop.

“Powell’s hit a few big ones where we need a big bucket and he hits the one,” DeVries said. “I think he’s very comfortable with that, especially as a freshman. He certainly has the green light from us and you need to have that type of confidence in that situation.”

Jonathan Powell and the Mountaineers now enter the postseason as the No. 8 seed in next week’s Big 12 Conference Tournament.