COLUMBUS, Ohio — With his West Virginia team holding a one-point lead over Maryland at halftime, coach Bob Huggins gave his players a reminder of what this Mountaineers team is. The short version: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
“I told our guys at halftime, ‘If you guys want to play pretty, we’re going to lose,’ ” Huggins said.
West Virginia (25-9) forced 23 turnovers, attempted 16 more field goals than the Terrapins (28-7) and went on to a 69-59 NCAA tournament Midwest Region victory at Nationwide Arena that sent the Mountaineers into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2010.
Their reward? A date with top-seeded, undefeated Kentucky at 9:45 p.m. Thursday in Cleveland.
“It’s another team,” sophomore forward Devin Williams said of the Wildcats. “They put their drawers on the same way that we do. That’s pretty much it.”
In a battle of contrasting styles, West Virginia’s high-pressure, physical defense won out over a Maryland attack that was among Division I’s most-prolific from the free-throw line. The Mountaineers committed 20 fouls, but the Terrapins only attempted 13 free throws — well short of their average of 21.6 per game.
Adding to the Mountaineers’ favor, they converted Maryland’s season-high turnovers into 26 points. Eight of those turnovers came from senior Dez Wells, who had averaged 17.2 points in his previous 13 games but finished with nine.
“They were using a lot more energy than they had to all year,” senior guard Juwan Staten said. “We knew at some point they would break. They started slowing down. They started getting shaky with the ball.”
It wasn’t nearly enough to pick up the slack against West Virginia’s balanced attack, especially when star freshman guard Melo Trimble was lost to a head injury with 8:25 remaining. Williams led the way with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Gary Browne added 14 for the Mountaineers.
After taking a moment to regroup after a hard foul in the first half, Trimble also took a forearm to the face on a screen by West Virginia’s Nathan Adrian about five minutes into the second half before friendly fire delivered the knockout blow.
With the Mountaineers pulling away, Trimble landed awkwardly just across midcourt while trying to intercept a pass and took an inadvertent knee to the back of the head from teammate Dodd Damonte. He watched the remainder of the game from a seat at the end of the bench and still finished with a team-high 15 points and three turnovers in 29 minutes.
“Obviously Melo’s pretty important to us,” a red-eyed, emotional coach Mark Turgeon said. “Lucky for us, he’s been healthy for us all year. He took a beating [Sunday night].”
The Mountaineers finally took control of a listless second half roughly at the midway point. After a scoreless stretch of 3:06 that saw both teams miss a combined nine shots and commit four turnovers, the Mountaineers put together an 8-0 run that made it 55-46 with 7:15 remaining. It marked their largest lead of the game to that point and pushed the game out of reach.
Not surprisingly it was keyed by their defense. In that stretch, Maryland missed five shots from the floor, committed two turnovers and lost Trimble. Tarik Phillip and Daxter Miles Jr. each had four points in the run, capped by a Miles Jr. dunk after a Phillip steal as West Virginia closed out its sixth trip to the Sweet 16 since 1998.
First Published: March 23, 2015, 4:40 a.m.
