MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The scoreboard pressure was amplified a few notches from Tuesday’s season-opening win over Mount St. Mary’s on Thursday night when the Mountaineers played host to Campbell. The Camels gave West Virginia all they could handle for 39-plus minutes before WVU secured a 73-65 victory at Hope Coliseum.
After a 16-point win in their opener, West Virginia struggled to shake free from the Camels in the second half. The Mountaineers (2-0) never relinquished an halftime lead but they saw the Camels creep within a point early in the second stanza and by four points with 90 seconds to play.
“Credit to them. They came in here and they weren’t phased,” said WVU senior guard Honor Huff. “They played a great game and had a great game plan. They took us down to the wire.”
“I thought our guys did a good job of responding to the game pressure. To me, that shows that they anticipated it being what it was. If you are not ready for that, if you have a different mindset or you think this will be easy and we will run away from them, when it gets tight you kind of have that starry-eyed look,” said WVU head coach Ross Hodge.
“I told our guys that we know we have to keep getting better but we are certainly not going to ever apologize for winning. You don’t get style points for dubs.”
West Virginia built a 33-25 halftime advantage thanks in large part to the play of senior forward Treysen Eaglestaff. After struggling with his shot against Mount St. Mary’s on Tuesday, Eaglestaff scored 10 of his 12 points in the opening half.
“Just learning to play with these guys against someone that is not ourselves, that’s a big thing,” Eaglestaff said.
The Camels (0-2) opened the second half on an 11-4 run to pull within a point at 37-36.
Leading 54-49 with five minutes to play, WVU received a big boost from Huff, who scored 16 of his game-high 23 points after halftime. Huff scored eight points in a two-and-a-half minute stretch as the Mountaineers built their largest lead of the second half at eight points.
“It definitely felt good to see some go through the net. When I shot an airball, it could have derailed my confidence. But my teammates did a great job in the huddle of encouraging me and telling me that we need you to make some plays and make the next shot,” Huff said.
“If you give me a glimpse of space and your hand is not in my boogers, I am going to shoot it and I am going to make it. That’s just kind of the confidence I have garnered over my college career.”
“I thought he made some huge shots down the stretch,” Hodge said. “It is what you expect from a senior guard that led the country in threes.”
A layup from Campbell’s DJ Smith with 1:30 to play pulled the visitors within four points. However, a slam dunk from Brenen Lorient on WVU’s next possession extended the lead to six points and the Mountaineers scored seven points from the free throw line to close the game out.
“It just shows our unity,” Huff said. “I think in times like that, it is best to kind of get together as a group and really grind it out. That’s what we had to do today. We all stepped up in our own way.”
Lorient scored a dozen points and he led the Mountaineers in rebounds (9) and blocked shots (5).
“The guards did a good job tonight of just focusing and making their man focus on trying to make the layup through contact as much as they can,” Lorient said. “I was just able to be in the right position to block those shots.”
Harlan Obioha (12) and DJ Thomas (10) also scored in double digits for West Virginia. The Camels were paced by Dovydas Butka’s 14-point effort.
West Virginia will next play their third game in six days to open up the season. The Mountaineers will host Lehigh Sunday at 3 p.m.
“I have be fiending to play,” Lorient said. “Watching all of these games, I have been wanting to play because we have been playing each other for so long. We’ve got a good group of guys and they just make playing fun.”
“You want to be playing your best basketball in March. And you want to be playing hopefully into April. That’s a while from now,” Hodge said. “What you’ve got to try to do is find a way to win games early when you are not playing your best. It is going to be a while before we play our best.”