West Virginia drops decision to Xavier 78-68
West Virginia dropped their second consecutive game falling 78-68 to Xavier in the Charleston Classic inside TD Arena Sunday evening.
The Mountaineers went with the same starting five as every other game this year with point guard Jasper Floyd, guard Honor Huff, guard Treysen Eaglestaff, forward Brenen Lorient and center Harlan Obioha.
Eaglestaff scored 20 points and Huff scored 16 points while Lorient had 11 points.
The Musketeers shot 16-25 from three in the game and were able to answer every run by the Mountaineers in the second half. West Virginia dropped to 5-2 on the season.
The Mountaineers were able to force two turnovers on the first two possessions for Xavier and got out to an early 4-0 lead with Lorient scoring each of those. West Virginia would push the early lead to 11-3 on a three-ball by Amir Jenkins just a little under three and a half minutes into the game.
West Virginia held an 18-13 edge at the 10:40 mark but the Musketeers were able to arrow the edge to just 23-21 with 7:30 left in the first half. Xavier would then take the lead on a three and hold that for essentially the remainder of the first half.
Xavier held a 32-28 lead with two minutes remaining in the first half as the Mountaineers struggled to put the ball in the basket and would enter the break trailing 36-28.
Obioha would open the second half with a basket and then an Eaglestaff layup cut the deficit in half just 30-seconds into the period. But the Musketeers would continue their hot shooting from deep to stretch the edge back out to 39-32.
But the Mountaineers would go on their own run to trim the deficit to 44-41 at the first media timeout. But the Musketeers would respond to push the advantage back out to 51-43 as they shot 11-17 from three.
Xavier took their largest lead of the game at that point 53-43 before a Huff three cut into the deficit. Huff would again strike from deep with a foul to make the score 57-51 with 10:51 remaining in the game.
But again Xavier would respond to put their advantage out to 66-55 with just over seven minutes left to play. The Mountaineers would continue to trim the lead down to a couple possessions, but Xavier would answer each time to extend the lead back to a comfortable margin.
Xavier had control with a 72-63 lead with just two minutes remaining and would close it out from there.
The Mountaineers will next take on Mercyhurst at home Nov. 30 with tip-off set for 3 p.m.
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