The West Virginia Mountaineers arguably played the worst half of the season. However, their defensive intensity got the ‘Eers back in it to lead by one at the half. Then when Alexander’s loss was felt when South Florida’s big bull Kentrell Gransberry scored lay-up after lay-up it was backup point guard Joe Mazzulla who took it upon himself to guard the big bull throwing him off his game while on the offensive side drew some important fouls to get to the line and pull away from the clutches of USF. The Mountaineers get a huge road victory by the final score of 69-52. Da’Sean Butler got his first Mountaineer double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds while Mazzulla scored 11 points on 7 of 9 foul shooting.

In the beginning, South Florida threw all sorts of various defenses at the Mountaineers throwing them off their rhythm. That left the ‘Eers missing various wide-open shots in particular from Butler who appeared to try too much in the first half to take the place of Alexander. Dominique Jones, who earlier in the season scored 30 points in back-to-back game, banked in a three point shot from straightaway to bring some breathing room for the Bulls at 19-13. Then Gransberry showed his muscle early on when his lay-up gave the Bulls their biggest lead of the game at 25-18 lead with 5:30 remaining. As soon as Gransberry found himself with two fouls WVU tighten the screws defensively leaving the Bulls without a point in the final 5:30 of the half. From there, WVU got themselves back in the game as they scored the final eight points of their half led by Darris Nicholas two treys, the second one to give the Eers a 26-25 halftime lead.

In the second half the Bulls game plan for the second half was as simple as humanly possible. The memo: GIVE THE BALL TO GRANSBERRY ON THE POST! Sure enough they followed that with ease as he scored the Bulls first 13 points of the second half. That included a move that would make Michael Jordan blush as he caught a long pass off a fast break and made the uncontested lay-up to give USF a 38-33 lead with 14:18 left. The Rainmaker put a band-aid to that bleeding as he drained a three to cut that lead to two. Then Bulter made a sweet reverse lay-up to tie the game at 38. As Gransberry was cooling off the WVU D got intense once again as USF struggled to find a bucket. They only made two baskets in the next 12 minutes while WVU outscored the Bulls 26-7 during that stretch.

Gransberry ended up scoring 22 points on 10 of 13 from the field but was 2 of 11 from the line. The big difference in the game was the foul shooting. West Virginia was 22 for 26 at the line while the Bulls were 4 of 15. Give credit to the Mountaineers for playing very intense basketball after a horrid start plus for playing smart ball as they comitted six turnovers. This 17-point win is a testament to Coach Huggs philosophy of throwing the opponents offense off their game by playing wall-to-wall defense and not having to depend on Beilein ball to win games. He’s won 604 career games as head coach for a reason!

Some food for thought: Joe Alexander will have an MRI on Monday to show the extent of the groin injury. He did warm up with the team before the game but trainers though better of the situation to go ahead and rest him. I hope he’ll be ready for G’Town! We’ll see. Starting in his place was John Flowers, a freshman who is getting better and better as the season goes on. Also, Jarrett Brown came in for the first time in a Mountaineer basketball uniform but proved to be of little help for the Mountaineers as he played only one minute and got called for a questionable offensive foul. Brown figures to play some important minutes as the season goes on.

West Virginia betters their record at 14-4 while having a 4-2 Big East conference record. Is that good enough for the Top 25? With upsets all over the place this weekend let’s hope so. Now it’s on to the Capitol City to play their rival the Marshall Thundering Herd. Coach Huggs will certainly get them ready for that. Way to go and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOUNTAINEERS!

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