West Virginia’s Offense Continues to Shine in Win Over Penn, 92-58

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s offense continued to impress in the young season, defeating Penn 92-58 on Friday night.

As a team, West Virginia (4-0) shot 55.6% from the field. Tre Mitchell and Erik Stevenson led the team in scoring against the Quakers (1-4). Stevenson had a game-high of 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the field. Mitchell had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting of his own.

14 different Mountaineers scored on Friday.

In the first half, West Virginia’s offense continued to not lose a beat from the first three games of the season. WVU started off 10-of-13 from the field, hitting 9-three’s. West Virginia showed off their depth playing 12 different players in the first 14 minutes of the game.

With 15 minutes to go, forward Mohamed Wague dove onto the floor and retained possession for the Mountaineers, which resulted in a pair of free throws. Wague’s hustle had the coliseum crowd erupt in a cheer as it has been a little while since they have seen such hustle. Wague finished with three points and two steals in nine minutes.

If there was one negative for West Virignia against Penn it was the rebounding. Penn out-rebounded WVU 38-29. The Quakers pulled down 19 offensive rebounds and scored 13 second-chance points in the process.

West Virginia took care of the ball, only committing seven turnovers. Something that the coaching staff has wanted to improve on early on.

Notable scorers for WVU: Stevenson (21), Mitchell (11), Kedrian Johnson (11) and Joe Toussaint (11).

With the win, West Virginia’s Bob Huggins has tied Jim Calhoun as the third-winningest head coach at the Division-I level with 920 victories. Huggins ties Calhoun, who is most known for coaching at UConn from 1986-2012. Calhoun won three national championships with the Huskies in 1999, 2004 and 2011. Huggins now only trails Mike Krzyzewski (1,202 wins) and Jim Boeheim (999 wins).

Friday night marked the first time since 1981 that West Virginia has played an Ivy League school. The Mountaineers hosted Penn in March 1981 and won 67-64 in Morgantown behind Greg Nance’s team-high 16 points.

Huggins never coached against an Ivy League opponent during his first 1,318 career games. Game No. 1,319 on Friday was his first.

West Virginia will now focus on the Phil Knight Invitational starting next Thursday against Purdue in Portland. The winner of that game will take on Gonzaga or Portland State. The rest of the field includes Duke, Oregon State, Xavier and Florida. WVU and Purdue will tipoff at 10 p.m. est. at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.