MORGANTOWN, W.Va — Esa Ahmad scored 17 of his career-best 19 points in the opening half and didn’t miss a shot from the floor as No. 25 West Virginia put away Manhattan early in a 108-61 romp Monday.
The pressing Mountaineers (5-1) recovered from Friday’s loss to Temple by forcing a school-record 40 turnovers, five coming on steals by Ahmad. The forward improved to 15-of-20 shooting in his past two games, becoming an offensive emphasis.
“He’s our advantage against a lot of people because everybody’s playing three guards,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “Him being 6-7 and having those huge hands, I think he can be a mismatch problem.
“Today they were playing that 1-1-3 and Esa did a good job of finding gaps.”
BOX SCORE: West Virginia 108, Manhattan 61
Nathan Adrian finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists. His tenacity was on display when the lanky forward dove headfirst into a scrum to force a held-ball situation with West Virginia leading 74-37.
“Nate would like to tell you he was a big-time football player, so he was just diving on a fumble,” Huggins said.
The resulting mini-scuffle led to a technical foul on the Jaspers’ Aaron Walker and Adrian sank two free throws.
Zavier Peart scored 11 and Samson Usilo had nine for the Jaspers (2-4). Point guard Zavier Turner, following a 32-point performance at Detroit, didn’t score his first basket until 18:23 remained in the game. He managed only five points, 14 below his season average.
The Mountaineers, leading the country at 24.8 forced turnovers per game, frustrated Manhattan into 25 by halftime, with forward Zane Waterman and Turner combining to commit 17.
“In order to be a tough guy you’ve got to go against some tough guys and get beat every once in a while,” said Manhattan coach Steve Masiello. “Before we made the tournament in 2014 and 2015 we went to Syracuse and lost by 28, went to Louisville lost by 30.
“I take my hat off to West Virginia. We want to take some things from them, get better, then go take that out on the MAAC.”
Daxter Miles scored 11 and among the 15 Mountaineers who scored, walk-on guard James Long added 10 points, nearly matching his previous two-year total of 13.
Ahmad shot 7-of-7 in the first half with three steals and two assists to help build a 60-27 margin. By that point West Virginia had 17 assists on 21 baskets, including slick perimeter passing that set up a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Long.
The Mountaineers made 47 percent of their shots, including 8-of-18 from 3-point range in leading wire-to-wire.
Manhattan shot 38 percent overall and 27 percent (6-of-22) on 3s.
Turnovers to the max
Manhattan’s 37th turnover with 4:48 remaining broke the WVU opponent record set by VMI on Nov. 26, 2014. However, the starters cheering on the sideline didn’t realize the benchmark moment, having been misinformed by Director of Basketball Operations Josh Eilert.
“Josh was telling us on the bench that we was close to it, but he had miscounted so we had already got it,” Ahmad said. “It’s big for us, though. We want to force teams to make mistakes and we turned them over a lot tonight.”
Manhattan had four turnovers in the opening four minutes, all by Waterman trying to get the ball inbounds.
“Obviously a lot of our turnovers were self-inflicted, but I give West Virginia credit for what they caused,” said Masiello. “We thought we could throw over the top but our timing was off a little bit.”
Soccer talk
Huggins on what final four advice he’d offer Nikki Izzo-Brown as the WVU women’s soccer team departs for the College Cup:
“Win. It’s no fun going home losing. It’s kind of neat to get there and then you lose and it’s just miserable. So if I was her, I’d really try to win.”
Quotable
Masiello said his players were hurting from the lopsided loss but understand how life works in a one-bid small conference.
“Do I want to win? Of course. But this gives our team a gauge,” he said. “Come January, if we’re a better team, I ‘m not worried about being 2-4. We’re not in a BCS league, so we don’t fall out of the top 25 tomorrow.”
Closing notes
With win No. 796, Huggins moved within 10 of Eddie Sutton for eighth place on the Division I all-time list. … Manhattan lost to Temple 86-67 in the NIT Season Tip-Off preliminaries while WVU fell 81-77 to the Owls in the championship game. … The Mountaineers’ average margin of victory in four home wins this season climbed to 41 points.