West Virginia men’s basketball bounced back from a loss earlier in the week to get a 91-81 win over the Toledo Rockets on Saturday at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown. In the high-scoring contest, guard RaeQuan Battle led the way with 29 points to give the Mountaineers’ their fifth victory of the season.
West Virginia (5-7) opened the scoring with forward Quinn Slazinski’s layup with a nice move in the post and fellow forward Akok Akok slammed home a dunk to make the score 4-4.
On the next possession, Battle drove into the paint and made a layup while drawing a foul, converting the and-one to lead 7-4. Guard Kerr Kriisa was perfect on back-to-back three-pointers as the Mountaineers’ jumped ahead 13-4 on a 5-for-5 shooting start.
Toledo (6-6) started off with two made mid-range jump shots from their guards but also committed three turnovers in the first five minutes that allowed WVU to get ahead early on.
Battle, after scoring 29 points in his WVU debut, surged into double-digit scoring just six minutes into the game after he went on a 5-0 run with a three-pointer and a layup in succession. Next after going on a 10-1 run, the Mountaineers led 25-7 with 13 minutes left in the first half.
The Rockets broke a six-minute drought with two layups in a row as West Virginia failed to make a field goal for over three minutes, shooting 0-for-8 across that stretch.
Rockets’ guard Dante Maddox Jr. scored nine-straight points for Toledo halfway through the first period, which included his three-pointer with eight minutes to go.
However, the West Virginia lead remained 28-16 with eight minutes left in the first period once Battle broke the aforementioned hiatus with a layup off a botched alley-oop. This play marked the first of three-straight field goals for Battle, as he followed it up with a three-pointer and an emphatic fastbreak slam to push WVU ahead 33-16.
Toledo went on a 11-5 run for a three-minute portion of the game to make the score 38-27 with three minutes left in the half as forward Javan Simmons scored two-straight baskets.
After trading two-point makes, Battle scored three free throws after a shooting foul but the Rockets answered with a shot from beyond the arc with under a minute to go.
Slazinski scored the final points of the first period as he made a layup with four seconds remaining to give West Virginia a 45-33 advantage at the halftime break.
Toledo started the second period by cutting the deficit to single digits for the first time since early in the first half, as the Rockets went on a 6-2 run across the first three minutes to make the score 39-47.
West Virginia guard Noah Farrakhan hit a big shot from long range to increase the lead by three points but the Rockets remained hot as fellow guard Ra’Heim Moss answered with his own three-pointer.
Soon after, Toledo guard Bryce Ford trimmed the deficit again with his jumper from beyond the arc, as the score became 52-47 with five minutes elapsed in the second period.
This sparked a 16-8 run that put the Rockets within striking distance, as they only trailed only 60-58. Toledo ramped up the aggressiveness and Maddox scored an impressive three-point shot with the bounce and a reverse layup to make it a two-point contest with 12 minutes left.
West Virginia found some life once they scored five-straight points off a free throw and a layup from forward Ofri Naveh and Slazinski to lead 66-61 with eight minutes left in the game.
The Rockets continued to fight back, with back-to-back three pointers from forward André Lorentsson that erased WVU’s advantage to two points once again. WVU did respond to score five-straight points with Akok’s layup and Kriisa’s three-pointer but the gap was still only six points at 72-66.
Mountaineers’ forward Josiah Harris and Moss for Toledo traded two layups each in four-straight possessions but WVU still led by six at 78-72 with under four minutes left in the contest.
West Virginia stretched its lead back out to nine points as it went on a 6-3 run with two minutes remaining, led by two crucial plays from Akok. The Georgetown transfer forward got an offensive rebound and a second-chance slam right before he blocked away a shot on the other end, with 90 seconds left in the game.
After Simmons converted an and-one for Toledo, WVU took control of the game and was true on five-straight free throws to pull away and complete the 91-81 win over Toledo at home on Saturday.
After the holiday break, West Virginia travels to Cleveland, Ohio to face off against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Saturday, Dec. 30. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. on FOX.
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