WVU made some OJ out of the ‘Cuse
The West Virginia basketball team finished their brutal four-game stretch with a 81-61 beatdown over the Syracuse Orange. The Rainmaker was at it again as he scored 23 points off of 7 of 11 shooting from three. He led three other players in double figures.
The action in the first half was exhilarating to watch at times. To begin with Joe Alexander posted up, turned around and jumped over Arinze Onuaku to make the sick two-handed jam. (note to self: need to compile a Top 10 highlight video of Joe Alexander’s jams). Following that one, Wellington Smith beat his man off the dribble for the two-handed flush. Then came the highlight of the game as Syracuse was transitioning the ball down court only to find a wide open Rick Jackson underneath to what appeared to be a slam dunk. Out of nowhere, freshman John Flowers swatted the ball away from the hands of Jackson firing up the crowd. That swat fell into the hands of Darris Nichols who went coast to coast for the running floater. On the next possession, Flowers forced a turnover and fell once again into the hands of Nichols who then threw the ball to the Rainmaker in front of the ‘Cuse bench to drain the three making it 18-12 with 9:24 remaining. As the action went on Nichols started to torch the nets with a turn around J followed by, minutes later, a long trey over the stiff 2-3 zone and then he capped it off with a running 14 footer to gave the ‘Eers a 27-18 advantage with 3:04 remaining.
Ruoff was like Pacman Jones attending feature night at Scores. He rained back to back treys to give the ‘Eers a 13 point lead. To cap off the first half, Rainmaker missed a rare trey only to be tipped in by the waiting hands of Flowers as time ran out. That give the Mountaineers a 35-20 lead at the half.
WVU started the second half on a 7-2 run to lead by 21 at 42-21. Then the Rainmaker was at it again as he drained another one to take a 45-22 lead with 16:30 remaining in the game. The Orange tried to dictate their up-tempo style but West Virginia’s speed off the dribble and their aggresiveness was too much. The ‘Eers still gave up the offensive rebounds for put backs but not such a big deal this time as the Orange are pretty young and Devendorf’s injury doesn’t help matters for them either. The Rainmaker decided to rain some more threes to increase their lead to 26 at 76-50 with 5:30 left. To finish every last drop of that sweet OJ Rainmaker made a sweet dish to Flowers for the two-handed flush. Coach Huggs sent in the reserves and that was that.
West Virginia runs their record to 13-4 with a 2-2 Big East record while the Cuse falls to 12-5 with also an 2-2 Big East record. As I stated earlier Jarrett Brown has joined the basketball team and was dressed in a suit and tie on the bench. I’ll get more details about this in my next blog. In the meantime, WVU will play their next game Thursday night at The Coliseum to play the Red Storm of St. John’s. So we swept the doubleheader. What a great day to be a Mountaineer!
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Wow Syracuse sucked. Liked they are screwing themselves by playing like this. This isn’t good for us fans of the Orange.