West Virginia manhandles Florida, 84-55

West Virginia outplayed Florida for much of the first half Sunday night in the fifth place game of the Phil Knight Legacy at Chiles Center in Portland.

It paled in comparison to the way the Mountaineers manhandled the Gators over the final 20 minutes.

After taking an eight-point lead into the break, West Virginia scored 20 of the first 22 points after halftime and immediately pulled away for an 84-55 victory in one of the Mountaineers’ more dominant rebounding efforts in recent memory.

“We played really the first half and then we kind of got a little loose,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “By and large, we played pretty well.”

WVU held a 49-28 rebounding edge, including 15-6 on the offensive end.

Emmitt Matthews Jr. opened the second-half scoring with a 3-pointer off the wing to give West Virginia (6-1) a 44-33 lead, and it marked the start of a 20-2 spurt over 5:02.

After the Gators’ Kyle Lofton scored in the paint to cut UF’s deficit to 45-35, it was all Mountaineers. 

Erik Stevenson’s triple gave WVU a 13-point lead and Tre Mitchell followed with a turnaround jumper that stretched the advantage to 50-35.

Matthews accounted for the next four points and Joe Toussaint scored with 15:52 remaining to give WVU a 21-point lead.

After another Stevenson trey and Mohamed Wague’s dunk, the Gators were faced with a 61-35 deficit.

Jason Jitoboh scored for Florida (4-3) to end a run of 16 unanswered points for the Mountaineers, but the Gators’ deficit was never inside 24 over the final 15:27.

“Our goal is to go to the NCAA Tournament and win in the NCAA Tournament and the easiest way to do that is to get a higher seed,” Huggins said. “We need to play like this all the time.”

It was an emphatic statement from West Virginia, which never trailed over the final 36:45 after Jimmy Bell scored to give the Mountaineers a 9-8 lead.

After Lofton scored to tie the game at 12, the Gators went 5:20 until their next field goal. When they got it courtesy of Riley Kugel’s layup, West Virginia’s lead was 26-15 as six different Mountaineers scored during the UF drought, including five points from Mitchell, who led the way with 17 points in the win.

Kobe Johnson’s bucket 6:41 before the break gave West Virginia its biggest lead to that point at 35-19, and it was 41-28 after Kedrian Johnson scored on a layup, before Lofton scored the final five points of the half to bring the Gators to within eight.

After shooting less than 38 percent (14 of 37) in the opening half, WVU made half of its 30 field-goal attempts over the final 20 minutes.

Stevenson scored 15 on 6-of-8 shooting and Matthews added 13 for a third double-figure scorer. Toussant and Wague weren’t far behind with nine and eight points, respectively.

Wague led the best rebounding effort of the season with nine boards, Mitchell added eight and Stevenson seven.

The Mountaineers made 29 field goals but had only 11 assists.

“We don’t share the ball enough, but that’ll come,” Huggins said.

Jimmy Bell finished with five points and six rebounds in 14 minutes and was at least partially responsible for helping to limit Florida’s leading scorer Colin Castleton to three points on 1-of-6 shooting. The 6-foot-11 Castleton entered averaging 20.7 points but picked up four fouls in 18 minutes.

“He moves his feet really well to stay in front of people,” Huggins said of Bell. “He’s scoring it around the goal, which he didn’t do when we first got him. He’s using his body and shielding defenders with his body and really doing a good job.”

The Gators made 11-of-27 shots in the opening half, but only 9 of 31 the rest of the way.

Lofton matched Mitchell for game-high scoring honors with 17. He was Florida’s only double-figure scorer.





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