West Virginia's second-half surge evens series vs. Georgetown

Field Level Media|published: Fri 6th December, 21:47 2024

NCAA Basketball: Battle 4 Atlantis-West Virginia vs Arizona

Nov 29, 2024; Paradise Island, Bahamas, BHS; West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries reacts against the Arizona Wildcats during the first half at Imperial Arena at the Atlantis resort. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Javon Small scored 26 points as West Virginia used a 16-0 second-half run to beat former conference rival Georgetown 73-60 in the Big 12-Big East Battle in Morgantown, W.Va., on Friday night.

Tucker DeVries scored five of his 15 points during the 16-0 spurt as the Mountaineers (6-2) continued their strong play that began in the Bahamas a week earlier when they knocked off ranked Gonzaga and Arizona.

Jayed Epps led Georgetown (7-2) with 17 points, which dropped its first road game of the season. Thomas Sorber added 13 points but was saddled with second-half foul trouble.

West Virginia has won two of the teams' three meetings since leaving the Big East in 2012 and knotted the all-time series with the Hoyas at 27 wins apiece.

It was a tight first half with three ties and four lead changes with neither team leading by more than five.

Small gave WVU a 23-22 lead on a 3-pointer Epps immediately answered with a banked three from the top of the key to push the Hoyas back on top 25-23. Epps scored 13 of his 17 points in the first half.

Malik Mack's 3-pointer from the top of the key gave the Hoyas a 30-25 lead. Mack finished the game with 10.

Georgetown led 30-28 at the half. Epps' 13 points came on 5-of-6 shooting from the field. The rest of the team was a combined 6 of 22.

Small scored 13 in the first half for the Mountaineers.

Georgetown scored the first four of the second half on a layup by Epps and a putback from Micah Peavy to grab their biggest lead at 34-28. Peavy entered Friday as the Hoyas' second-leading scorer at 14.8 points per game but scored just four.

DeVries tied the game at 36 on a long three.

WVU took its first second-half lead at 45-43 on a Toby Okani layup with 11:48 remaining, right after Sorber picked up his fourth foul and went to the bench. Okani finished with 11 points.

The Mountaineers got threes from Small and DeVries and pushed the lead to 55-43 before a three from Caleb Williams ended the Hoyas' nearly six-minute drought.

Georgetown got to within 55-50 but got no closer.

Georgetown shot 36.7 percent in the second half while West Virginia hit on 50 percent.

--Field Level Media