West Virginia whips Mountain State

By Dave Morrison

MORGANTOWN — The discrepancy in talent was obvious. And early.

West Virginia had talent at every position, including the bench.

Mountain State had talent, too, but it didn’t run as long or as deep as West Virginia’s talent.

West Virginia dipped into that talent pool to take a 30-6 lead and never looked back in a 104-82 exhibition win Sunday at the WVU Coliseum.

The numbers simply backed the dominance that West Virginia — ranked in the preseason poll for just the third time in history — at No. 8.

West Virginia had the numbers to prove it’s dominance:

n Kevin Jones came off the bench for 21 points and 10 rebounds.

n Devin Ebanks had 19 points and 10 rebounds.

n Newcomer Casey Mitchell, a JUCO transfer, had 19 points.

n Da’Sean Butler was an assist and a rebound from a triple-double with 10 points, nine rebounds and nine assists.

n Truck Bryant dished out nine assists.

“West Virginia is extremely talented and so well coached,” MSU coach Bob Bolen said. “They never take a bad shot. They are efficient on offense. And they are very good defensively.”

Mountain State just didn’t have enough weapons to match up with West Virginia.

Cincinnati transfer Alvin Mitchell had 33 points, and Nick Aldridge had 29 points and 11 rebounds. The rest of the team combined for 20 points.

“I’m proud of our team, because we got down early and we kept on fighting to the end of the second half,” Bolen said. “Our two Division I players stepped up to the plate. Now we’ve got to get some other guys to step up to the plate.”

Mitchell and Aldridge were a combined 21 of 51 from the field. The remainder of the team was 8 of 22 and the pair took 20 of the team’s 25 free throws (making 13).

WVU’s Bob Huggins again came away impressed with the Cougars’ resolve.

“I’ve tried to play Mountain State every year because they’ve been the most competitive,” Huggins said. “We don’t need to bring somebody in here and win by 70 because it doesn’t do us or them any good. 

“We’re so much more talented that we’re supposed to (win). I think you can ask Bobby and he’d say the same thing. They’re competitive and Bobby always has some high-major transfers and guys who can play on (a Division I) level. We want to play someone from our state.”

Former Mountain State Academy standout Deniz Kilicli played 19 minutes and had eight points and six rebounds. Kilicli is ineligible for the first 20 regular season games after it was discovered that he played on a team in Turkey that had paid a player.

“I know a lot of those guys from playing with them in the summer and I can tell you they are much improved,” Kilicli said. “We have a really good team but I thought they were good, too.”

Other than a 2-2 tie early, the game was never really close.

WVU used a 13-0 run to go up 15-2.

After a Mitchell slam dunk, WVU went on a 15-2 run, including three straight treys (two by Butler and one by Dalton Pepper) to make it 30-6 roughly eight minutes into the game.

From there Mountain State held its own.

“We played a top 10 team in the country and we’re not going to see anybody as talented as that again,” Bolen said. “We saw how we can score against a team that good. Now we have to add to that.”

MSU (4-0) will get a chance to do that Tuesday, hosting Bluefield State at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.

— E-mail: demorrison@

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