Last Friday, West Virginia was on the wrong side of a bad, blowout loss to Pitt. On Wednesday against Iona, the Mountaineers needed to redeem themselves from the loss ahead of a challenging three-game stretch beginning a week from tonight.
They would indeed be able to get that redemption and get right before their trip to the Bahamas, as they rolled over Iona, 86-43, at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown.
It was a slow start for both teams, as neither team scored within the first two minutes of the game. Tucker DeVries, who scored only six points while going 2-for-10 from the field, got off to a hot start but was doing it with more than just his offense. While he hit a three-pointer to open the scoring, he would get a steal, which led to an easy Sencire Harris layup to put WVU in front, 7-2. He then would score two more after a technical foul and got another steal, this time leading to a Jonathan Powell dunk as WVU went in front 15-7.
Powell, a true freshman, was WVU’s only sign of offense against the Panthers last Friday. He scored 16 points, but that didn’t mean he had to stop there.
Powell would finish the first half with 11 points as he started 4-for-4 from the field, including knocking down three three-pointers as WVU went into halftime with a 45-22 lead. WVU smothered the Gaels in the first half, holding them to 29 percent shooting and forcing 15 turnovers in the process.
It would be a similar story in the second half as WVU’s defense turned up the pressure, specifically at the rim. WVU ended the game with 11 blocks, compared to just two blocks from Iona. Their 11 blocks are the most in a single game by a WVU team since a Mountaineer team did it last in 2021.
WVU opened the second half on a 14-7 run, as Javon Small scored half of those points for the Mountaineers. Small finished the game with 23 points, the 12th time in his career he has reached the 20-point plateau.
Following the run, WVU led by 30 with 12:22 remaining, but they wouldn’t stop there. The Mountaineers would go on an 11-0 run, extending their lead to as many as 44 points in the second half.
The West Virginia defense would force a season-high 21 turnovers, leading to 26 points from the Mountaineers. WVU also held the Gaels to just 24 percent shooting and 26 percent from three.
Small's 23 points paced WVU offensively, as the Mountaineers finished the game shooting 52 percent from the field and going 15-for-31 from beyond the arc. Their 15 made three-pointers were the most in a game since 2018.
WVU now heads to the Battle 4 Atlantis, where they will first face No. 3 Gonzaga.
----------
• 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
