By Dave Morrison
One thing is for sure: West Virginia University President Jim Clements won’t have to apologize for his fans’ behavior at today’s game.
West Virginia (18-3, 7-2 Big East) travels to New York to face St. John’s (12-9, 2-7) in a noon tipoff at Madison Square Garden. The game will be carried live on ESPNU.
After Wednesday’s game, won by the Mountaineers 70-51, which included debris being thrown on the floor and a Pitt assistant being hit under the eye by a coin, Clements issued an apology to Pitt.
That won’t be a problem at the Garden.
What might be a problem for St. John’s?
West Virginia has won the last nine meetings in the series (WVU leads 19-15). Also, No. 6 WVU has won five straight and the Red Storm has dropped four straight.
Lost in the fracas that was Wednesday’s 179th Backyard Brawl was the debut of Deniz Kilicli, the 6-foot-9 Turk. The former Mountain State Academy standout entered the game early and scored six straight points. He finished with nine, hitting all four of his shots from the floor.
All that’s standing in the way of WVU jumping into the top five nationally is a St. John’s team that hasn’t exactly been blown out in its losses to several nationally ranked teams.
The Red Storm lost to Duke by nine (80-71), Georgetown by seven (66-59), Villanova by 10 (81-71) and Pitt by 10 (63-53).
D.J. Kennedy leads St. John’s, averaging 15.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. Dwight Hardy is averaging 11.1, Paris Horne 8.2, Justin Brownlee 7.3 and Sean Evans 7.2 and a team-high 6.6 rebounds.
The Mountaineers are led by senior Da’Sean Butler, who is averaging 16.6 ppg, 6.2 rebounds, and he has a team-best 37 three pointers.
Kevin Jones is averaging 14.7 and 7.6, Devin Ebanks 11.1 and a team-best 8.6 rebounds and Truck Bryant 10.6.
Coach Bob Huggins said he likely will work Kilicli more and more into playing time.
“I wanted to play him a little more because he scores for us, but there are just so many things he just doesn’t understand on the other end yet,” the coach said.
West Virginia beat St. John’s 75-52 last year in Morgantown.
