WVU rocks Red Raiders 90-68
New starting lineup, no problem for West Virginia (23-7, 12-5) as the Mountaineers defeated Texas Tech 90-68 on Senior Night inside the Coliseum Wednesday.
The Mountaineers elected to go with a different starting five against the Red Raiders reinserting Daxter Miles into the lineup as well as moving Elijah Macon ahead of Devin Williams. The remainder of the first-team unit consisted of regular starters Nathan Adrian, Esa Ahmad and Jevon Carter.
West Virginia was led in scoring by Miles with 15 points as well as senior guard Jaysean Paige with 15 of his own. Junior forward Nathan Adrian scored 13 points while junior guard Tarik Phillip added 13 points off the bench. Senior Jonathan Holton scored 7 points while adding 11 rebounds in his final home game.
The Mountaineers capitalized on getting more shot attempts than the Red Raiders shooting the ball 25 more times while connecting on 51.6 percent of their shots. West Virginia also won the rebounding edge 39 to 23 including 19 offensive rebounds.
On the defensive end, West Virginia turned 18 turnovers into 32 points.
Texas Tech got on the scoreboard first on a wide open layup, but the newly retooled starting five for the Mountaineers would score eight straight points to take an early 8-2 lead. And the visitors would never recapture the lead.
Senior guard Toddrick Gotcher would end that run with a wide open three-pointer from the corner for the Red Raiders but the Mountaineers would answer with a Holton and Phillip layup to push the score to 12-5 at around the 15 minute mark of the first half.
Texas Tech would trim the lead to 15-14 on the heels of a mixture of layups and three pointers as the two teams would continue to exchange punches early in the game. Fresh off his first start for Miles since the Baylor game, he would connect on his third three of the first half to give the Mountaineers a 20-16 edge with 8:38 remaining to play in the first frame.
The Mountaineers held a 14-5 advantage on the glass, including eight offensive rebounds at the 5:21 mark with West Virginia leading 26-22. At that spot, the home standing team had already taken nine more shots than the Red Raiders.
Paige continued his hot streak of late in the first half with his eighth point followed by a steal and Holton dunk to push the advantage to 32-22 at the 3:56 mark, the first double digit lead of the game.
Holton would head back to the locker room with an apparent shoulder injury late in the first half, but the Mountaineers would continue to turn the pressure into Red Raider mistakes and extended the lead to 36-22 with just over two minutes to play in the first half.
The Red Raiders would trim the lead to 36-26, but a Carter three would push the advantage back out to a baker’s dozen and a Macon dunk would give the Mountaineers a 41-26 lead entering the break. That lead would swell to 44-26 in the first 40 seconds of the half.
But Texas Tech would score four straight of their own breaking the press forcing Huggins to hit the bench and substitute four of his five starters and the lead would quickly move back to 49-30.
West Virginia would lead 55-41 at the 13:48 mark as the Mountaineers put the Red Raiders in the bonus and they were able to chip away at the free throw line. But Nathan Adrian would end that run with a layup giving him eight points or more for the seventh time since being inserted into the starting lineup seven games ago. He did that only once in the first 19 games of the year.
The lead would stand at 61-42 with 11 minutes left to play as the Mountaineers continued to force Texas Tech into mistakes and capitalize on the offensive end. Back to back Miles three-pointers pushed the advantage to 69-46 at the 8:30 mark as the Mountaineers moved into cruise control against the Red Raiders pushing the lead even as far as 80-54 with just over 5:30 remaining.
And from there the Mountaineers would salt the game away with senior Richard Romeo even being inserted into the lineup to a standing applause from the crowd with over three minutes left to play. Romeo would hit a jump shot to get in the books.
The win is the second of the season over Texas Tech and West Virginia has now clinched at least third place in the Big 12 Conference. The Mountaineers will conclude the regular season with a 2 p.m. trip to Baylor Saturday afternoon.