West Virginia Dominates Marshall to Advance to the Sweet 16

The 5^th seed West Virginia Mountaineers (26-10) rolled through the 13^th seed Marshall Thundering Herd (25-11) 94-71 to advance to their third Sweet 16 in four years.

Jevon Carter jumped in front of the opening tip and laid it in the opening seconds of play to take the early 2-0 lead.

Marshall responded with three straight threes to take a 9-2 lead in the first two minutes of the game.

The Mountaineers battled back to cut get within three, 11-8 led by two free throws and a jumper from forward Sagaba Konate.

The Herd was leading 18-11 before a 23-2 run by West Virginia gave them a 14-point lead 34-20.

West Virginia went into halftime leading 42-25, despite only shooting 39% (15-38) from the field but was beating them on the boards 27-11. “We thought that was our advantage coming in.” said West Virginia head coach Huggins.

“We’re better when we get a lot more possession than the opposition. We we’re up 13 or 14, 12 I don’t know what it was at halftime and shot 39% because we had so many possessions off the offensive glass and turnovers.” Said Huggins

West Virginia had 15 points off of 11 Marshall turnovers in the first half.

Jevon Carter led all scorers with 11 points and had three rebounds and three steals.

Lamont West had a big first half contributing nine points and six rebounds.

The Mountaineers continued to roll in the second half. Both teams started the half out hot, but West Virginia’s size and strength was too much for Marshall to overcome.

West Virginia went up 26 in just over four minutes into the half with a pair of threes from Carter and both West and Daxter Miles Jr hit one from behind the arc.

Marshall would never get the West Virginia lead to under 20 points and the Mountaineers built their lead up to thirty twice throughout the second half.

Jevon Carter got 17 of his 28 points in the second half. He also finished the game with five assists and five steals. “That’s typical for him. That’s why he was the National Defensive Player of the Year a year ago and he probably will be again the year.” Said Huggins

This was a dominating performance by the Mountaineers. Once West Virginia took the lead with a little over 10 minutes to play in the first half they never looked back.

The defensive pressure the Mountaineers put on the Herd all game had them rattled. Marshall could never figure out how to beat the 1-2-2 full court press.

Marshall guard Jon Elmore came into the game shoot 51.6% from behind the arc and averaging 26.7 points, 6.3 assists and 5.7 rebounds in the last three game and West Virginia held him to 15 points, four assists and two rebounds, which most of those points came late in the game. The Mountaineers also forced him into eight turnovers.

Lamont West finished the game with his first career double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Heading into Boston next week, seeing him have his shot back along with crashing the boards couldn’t come at a better time.

The Mountaineers face Villanova in the Sweet 16 on Friday night at approximately 7:27 on TBS.