Notre Dame edges WVU, 56-55
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – Dan Miller’s inside basket with 18.8 seconds left lifted Notre Dame past West Virginia 56-55 Tuesday night to give the Irish their fourth straight 20-win season. Notre Dame (20-5, 8-3 Big East) stayed within a half game of first-place Syracuse in the West Division. Syracuse beat St. John’s 66-60 Tuesday night.
Matt Carroll led the Irish with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Chris Thomas added 13 points and Torin Francis had 11.
Notre Dame seemed to be in control after Carroll hit a 3-pointer for a 48-33 lead with 11:39 left in the game.
West Virginia clawed back despite being outrebounded badly for the second time by Notre Dame this season.
Freshman Joe Herber, whose mother and sister flew in from his native Germany to watch him play, made his only basket of the game to tie the score at 52-52 with 1:49 left.
Thomas hit a floater in the lane with 1:02 left. Freshman Kevin Pittsnogle’s 3-pointer 22 seconds later gave West Virginia its only lead of the game, 55-54.
Miller was just 2-of-13 from the floor for the contest, but he took a feed from Thomas and scored the game-winner from beneath the basket.
West Virginia’s Drew Schifino, who led all scorers with 19 points, missed two shots in the final seven seconds and Notre Dame held on.
Notre Dame shot just 38.3 percent from the floor for the game, while West Virginia shot 40.4 percent.
Freshman Patrick Beilein had a career-high 13 points for West Virginia.
After getting outrebounded 51-27 in their first meeting with Notre Dame, West Virginia coach John Beilein tried to figure out a way to even out that statistic.
Nothing worked. Pittsnogle, West Virginia’s tallest player and second-leading scorer, had just nine points and three rebounds in 27 minutes, and West Virginia was outrebounded 42-29.
The Mountaineers’ 14,000-seat arena was more than half empty. Classes at West Virginia were canceled for a second day Tuesday due to a recent winter storm, which dumped about 20 inches of snow in the area.