The West Virginia Mountaineers (3-0) fended off the Mercy Bears (2-3) Thursday night for a 75-61 win.
Senior guard Finley Bizjack led the Mountaineers with 15 points to go with six rebounds, while freshman Mile Sadler recorded 12 points and six assists and senior forward Javan Buchanan
Opening statement
I want to start out giving (Mercer head) coach (Ryan) Ritter and his group a ton of credit, man. Fifth game in 11 days. Obviously had a quick turnaround, and I thought for a good majority of the game, they were the more physical, determined team.
We kind of knew what they were going to do and just didn’t do a good enough job of really keeping them off the glass and I thought our first-shot defense was pretty good the entire night, but they’re fast to the ball. Again, they play a ton of one-on-one, so it’s easy to kind of watch one person play with the ball, and then a shot goes up and they’re able to hit you first. Just got to give them a lot of credit.
Thankful. Obviously, yesterday was Veterans Day. Today was an opportunity to honor them with the game, and that is bigger than basketball. But give them a lot of credit.
I thought we had one little stretch there in the second half where we played with enough physicality and force, and that’s why we were able to get the lead. But consistently over the 40 minutes of the game, we just weren’t physical enough and got to give them a lot of credit for that.
What contributed to WVU shooting 31.3% from the field in the first half?
I thought we had good looks in the first half from good shooters – had a couple rim in and out. And there was that stretch where I think we were up maybe eight or nine or maybe even 10 in the first half, and then we had a couple good looks that could have extended out and When we didn’t get that, again, we weren’t able to get enough clean defensive rebounds. We were able to stop them, but we weren’t able to get just enough clean defensive rebounds. We either kind of fouled them, or the ball got rattled around, or we knocked it out of bounds, or they came up with it. The game just kind of got turned into a little bit of a half-court game, and we weren’t able to play with enough force and pace.
They did a good job of being gap-heavy and kept the ball out of the paint. Again, I looked at the shots. I didn’t have a ton of criticism for the shots we were taking necessarily. It was more our inability to stop them, get a clean rebound and get out, and then you can start putting some paint pressure on, which is what we were able to do to start the second half.
Finley’s 15 points and six rebounds
Finley has a reputation as a scorer, and obviously he can do that, but he’s worked really hard to improve his game in all facets. Again, six rebounds, made simple plays. And sometimes it doesn’t always show up in a stat sheet, you make a great pass, and somebody gets fouled, you don’t get an assist, but he makes the free throw.
So, I feel like his potential assists, his playmaking, his toughness, and his grit are showing how much he’s grown as a basketball player.
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