West Virginia at times looked like a basketball team that hadn’t played in a week during the first half against Georgetown. The Mountaineers were sluggish and trailed 30-28 entering the halftime break.
But the second half was a different story, as West Virginia used a 16-0 run and was fueled by a raucous crowd of 11,522 to help propel them to a 73-60 win over the Hoyas.
“I thought the crowd was tremendous this was kind of our first chance as a staff and a team to kind of feel what the coliseum is like when it’s pretty full and I thought the crowd had a tremendous impact on the game because we were half a step slow a good portion of the night,” head coach Darian DeVries said. “But I thought their energy provided us some energy and we were able to come out of it and once we did that we were able to sustain it for the rest of the second half.”
A crowd won’t win you a basketball game, but the impact was something that DeVries could see when both teams had the basketball. For West Virginia, it provided a boost after the slow start, while on the defensive end the noise impacted the Hoyas offense and their ability to execute and call their plays.
That forced it to break down into one-on-one situations and the Mountaineers proved up to the challenge.
“I thought our guys did a really good job, which was my concern coming into it. We could guard their actions, but can you guard them one-on-one when the action breaks down? Because they’re aggressive, they’re good and they’re scorers,” DeVries said.
The head coach even inserted himself into the atmosphere by becoming animated on the sideline multiple times invigorating the crowd even more and in turn his team.
He could sense that is team didn’t have the same energy and enthusiasm that they’ve been accustomed to plying with and he wanted to help create even more of a spark which helped to further create a more intimidating atmosphere for the visitors.
DeVries even joked that he might have pulled something being animated for his team to respond on defense.
West Virginia can’t rely on a 16-0 run to pull them out of those situations every game, so it’s important to play with the type of effort and energy that was apparent at stages in the second half.
“We have to play a certain way for us to be good and the way we played in the second half I’ll take that team anywhere. But you have to be able to do that every single night and that’s every single possession,” he said.
That especially showed itself on the glass, where the Mountaineers won the edge, as well as on defense. The Mountaineers have to be a tough, physical team to have success, and the crowd helped to play a big role.
“That home court advantage we have is real and when this crowd is engaged like that then this is a very, very tough place to play,” DeVries said.
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