West Virginia beats Lafayette 81-59
West Virginia completed a sweep of a five-game home-stand by beating Lafayette 81-59 Monday night inside the Hope Coliseum.
The Mountaineers went with the same starting five of point guard Jasper Floyd, guard Honor Huff, guard Treysen Eaglestaff, forward Brenen Lorient and center Harlan Obioha.
Huff scored 24 points with 8 three-pointers one short of tying the school record held by Alex Ruoff, while freshman DJ Thomas scored a career high 25 points, Amir Jenkins had 9 points and Lorient had 9 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists filling the stat sheet.
Huff opened the scoring with a three-ball and the Mountaineers held a 5-2 lead through the first two minutes of the game and would hold an 8-5 edge at the first media timeout at 15:10.
The Mountaineers lead would sit at just 10-8 at the 13:30 mark as West Virginia started the game shooting just 27-percent from the floor. The Leopards would tie the game at 11-all as the clock ticked under 12-minutes in the half and West Virginia was still struggling to get things started.
Seven consecutive points from Thomas gave the Mountaineers a 20-13 lead with 8:45 remaining in the first half to create some distance between the two teams. Another Thomas layup gave him 11 points in the half and kept the Mountaineers out front at 25-18.
Huff hit his third triple of the half with 4:18 remaining to give the Mountaineers 30-18 edge which was at the time their biggest lead of the half. And Huff would strike again a few possessions later with a triple to keep the Mountaineers out front 33-21 with just over two minutes left in the half.
Lafayette would force head coach Ross Hodge to use a timeout with 30.9 seconds remaining in the half after two consecutive baskets to trim the lead back under 10. But Huff would answer yet again with a three pointer right before the half to push the edge to 36-25 heading into the break.
Lorient opened the second half with a basket but the Leopards would answer with a three-pointer on the other end to keep the advantage at 10. Huff would hit his sixth three of the night to push the Mountaineers back out front 43-29 and then Thomas would add a layup on a put back.
Another Huff triple gave the Mountaineers a 48-31 lead as the home team began to pull away. Huff would hit his eighth three and was just one off tying the school record of nine.
From that point forward, West Virginia would keep the edge at a comfortable enough distance between the two teams to move to 5-0 on the season.
The Mountaineers will next head to Charleston, South Carolina to take on Clemson Friday night at 6:30 p.m. in the Charleston Classic.
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