West Virginia got a win they badly needed on Saturday as they beat Utah 71-62 at the WVU Coliseum.
The Mountaineers led for 30 minutes of the game, including the entirety of the second half, but multiple winning plays helped lead to the win for West Virginia.
West Virginia was tied at 24-24 with just about four minutes to play in the first half. They would turn things up defensively, leading to success on offense as they closed the final four minutes on a 12-3 run.
"I thought that was a big stretch for us right before halftime there where in our previous game right before half it went the other way and we had come out of the four-minute timeout and talked about finishing this half off in a positive way and had a couple guys make some really big plays there," West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries said.
Toby Okani spearheaded the run, as he compiled five points, a steal, and a block in that stretch.
"Toby's block was terrific. Toby in that first half made a lot of really good winning plays, tough plays, some blocks, diving on the floor, got us a big offensive rebound kick out to Joe [Yesufu] for a three in that first half. So I thought that was really good," DeVries said.
Another guy who stepped up throughout the night was Joe Yesufu. Yesufu scored 14 points, including multiple buckets when the game started to get tight.
"I thought Joe had some really big, big possessions for us. Some of those driving runners I don't know how they go in but I'm glad they do," DeVries said.
Another guy who made plays during the bigger moments of the game was Jonathan Powell. Powell had struggled recently but finished the game with 11 points and seven rebounds, making four of his seven shots from the field.
One of those shots came late as the shot clock expired as he made a deep two, before he then scored an easy basket off a steal near mid-court, helping keep WVU in front.
"That big defensive possession he's picking up full court. We're up eight. It's a critical time in the game and he gets a steal and gets down and gets a dunk to put us up ten. I thought it was a big, big turning point to kind of finalize that little push at the end," DeVries said.
DeVries and the Mountaineers fed off a capacity crowd of 13,166 at the WVU Coliseum, something DeVries said is critical for his team.
"That's what I love about what we have here. It's sold out, but they're not just watching the game, like everybody in this arena is into the game. They're helping us out and that's critical in this league. You've got to have a huge home-court advantage and we have that here," DeVries said.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
