Leave it to senior Darris Nichols, junior Alex Ruoff, and sophomore Da’Sean Butler to make the crunch-time buckets when needed as WVU pulled away from the Arizona Wildcats 75-65 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Verizon Center. They will now face the Duke Blue Devils who barely got by the Belmont Bruins earlier today. The Rainmaker lead all Eers with 21 points on five treys plus the dunk at the end when his fingers barely touched the rim to put the exclamation point on the victory. Butler scored 19 points on 9 of 13 shooting mostly on put-backs. Nichols overcame foul trouble in the first half to score 14 points as did Alexander. Their efforts combined were 72 of the Eers 75 points.

The Mountaineers got off to a hot start as Nichols and Ruoff drained their treys to give the Eers an 8-3 lead. The talented duo of Jerryd Bayless and Budinger found themselves in foul trouble but played on. Butler hit shot after shot giving the Eers a 20-13 lead while Jawann McClellan controlled Alexander all through the first half holding him to six points. Bulter gave the Eers a 20-13 lead. Despite the fact that they are usually good shooters, Bayless and Budinger couldn’t hit anything. As Ruoff hit another trey the Mountaineers scored their biggest lead of the half at 25-17.

Unfortunately, the Eers started to tense up and Arizona took advantage as they went on a 10-2 run to tie the game at 27. Alexander tried to take over as he drained the only two foul shots WVU made in the first half to lead 31-29, but he fouled Nic Wise ON A THREE POINT ATTEMPT with 0.3 left. Wise made the first one and the Cats were called for a lane violation so that he could only shoot one more, which he missed. Luckily, the Mountaineers came away with a halftime lead of 31-30. The MVP of the first half had to go to bad ass Jordan Hill. He kept the Cats right in it from the paint and made Wellington Smith look like a wuss. He scored 8 pts with 9 rebounds in the first half alone.

In the second half, Nichols and Ruoff hit back-to-back treys to keep the Eers above water. Hill was strong initially, but foul trouble did him in. Another timely three by Ruoff (thanks to a killer screen by Smith who played like a beast in the second half) gave the Eers a huge nine-point lead (48-39). The Eers were cruising along, but with Bayless and Budinger on the court they were still in it.

With the clock winding down, Bayless thunder-struck the Eers with back-to-back treys to cut the Mountie lead to one at 60-59. On the next possession, senior Nichols made a crucial trey (thanks to another killer Wellington Smith screen) to take the lead back up to four. From there Ruoff made another timely three to take it up to seven. Then with time on the shot clock winding down, Nichols made another critical three to give the Eers a 69-61 lead. The Eers answered the call when the game was on the line and thanks to their three-point shooting (11 for 19) they will live to fight another day.

I have to mention that Jaime Smalligan played spectacularly tonight. The senior who’s been beat around by the Big East big man finally put it all together and played his best basketball of the season. Here’s hoping he does the same against the smaller Dookies. Of course I will bring down the OVERRATED Dookies on Saturday but for now congrats on a huge first-round win and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOUNTAINEERS!