No. 10-ranked Houston prolonged its nation’s-best residence successful streak to 32 video games with tonight’s 70-54 victory over West Virginia on the Fertitta Heart in Houston, Texas.
The Cougars obtained a season-high 22 factors from J’Wan Roberts and 18 from L.J. Cryer to enhance to 13-3 total and 5-0 in Huge 12 play.
“(Roberts) makes it robust as a result of we did double him one time within the first half they usually hit a 3, however our sport plan going into it was to play him one on one and he made us pay for it,” West Virginia coach Darian DeVries mentioned afterward. “He places you in a very robust spot as a result of he’s such an excellent passer.”
Roberts made 10 of his 13 subject purpose makes an attempt whereas Cryer related on half of his 10 three-point subject purpose tries.
West Virginia, on the again finish of a two-game highway journey that included a Sunday afternoon victory at Colorado, drops to 12-4 and 3-2.
Amani Hansberry got here off the bench to tally 16 factors, together with 12 in a row throughout one stretch within the second half, whereas Javon Small contributed 13.
Small scored 9 straight factors within the first half and West Virginia was trailing by three factors with 10 minutes to go. However the Cougars used a 9-0 spurt to push their result in 12 and led 40-27 at halftime.
West Virginia scored eight straight to start the second half, and had the deficit down to a few, 51-48, with 12:36 to go when it went ice chilly.
“Within the second half, we got here out rather more aggressive and did some higher issues defensively, which led to some higher offense as effectively,” DeVries mentioned. “Then Amani gave us a spark within the second half, however each time we obtained again in there it appeared prefer it was an enormous turnover from us that did not give us a shot to even get a ball up on the rim.”
Houston held the Mountaineers scoreless for a six-minute stretch and the Cougars responded with a 14-0 run to place the sport away.
Houston’s largest lead was 16 with 1:10 remaining.
The Cougars made 11 of 26 from behind the three-point arc and turned West Virginia’s 12 turnovers into 25 factors. Houston additionally outscored West Virginia 24 to 16 within the paint and outrebounded the Mountaineers 30 to 23.
West Virginia shot 44.2% from the ground, connecting on 19 of 43, whereas Houston shot 49% by making 25 of its 51 subject purpose makes an attempt.
Emanuel Sharp contributed 14 factors for the Cougars.
Tonight’s loss was West Virginia’s first towards a nationally ranked workforce after three victories.
“I assumed the way in which the sport performed out, we did numerous actually good issues at occasions, and we knew going into it that turnovers had been going to be the most important key,” DeVries mentioned. “We solely had 12 turnovers, which is a pair greater than you desire to, however all of them it appeared like resulted in factors.
“They had been actually environment friendly at profiting from any time we gave them a free ball and taking place and changing when our protection wasn’t allowed to get set,” DeVries mentioned.
The Mountaineers resume one of many tough parts of their schedule with a house sport on Saturday towards second-ranked Iowa State.
West Virginia College will probably be celebrating the life and legacy of Jerry West through the sport with video tributes all through and an on-court memorial service at halftime with a lot of his relations readily available.
West died in Los Angeles final June 12.
The sport has already been introduced a sellout.
