Sally ties career-high with 25 points in WVU’s 96-86 win over Pirates
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – Tyrone Sally strayed from West Virginia’s usual balanced approach to scoring. Sally tied a career high with 25 points to lead West Virginia to a 96-86 win over Seton Hall on Sunday.
He scored 10 of his points in the first seven minutes of the game and finished 9-of-14 from the floor.
“I was feeling it early,” he said. “I was just taking advantage of the opportunities I was given. When we see a guy is hot, we try to feed him as much as we can.”
The Mountaineers (16-8 overall, 6-7 Big East) reached their highest point total in two seasons and improved to 12-0 when scoring at least 70 points.
“The good news is that we scored,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.”The bad news is that we still haven’t found a way to stop people. I guess if we can outscore them, that’s all right.”
Mike Gansey added 19 for West Virginia. Kevin Pittsnogle added 16 and Joe Herber finished with 10.
Donald Copeland had a career-high 19 points for Seton Hall (11-12, 3-9), which lost for the fifth time in six games despite also setting a season high in points.
“One of the areas that we have struggled is on offense,” said Seton Hall coach Louis Orr. “I thought we did a good job of that today. We just had too many breakdowns defensively.”
West Virginia took the lead for good early in the game and The Mountaineers built an 18-point lead late in the first half, but Seton Hall used a full-court press to cut the deficit to 41-32 at halftime. Seton Hall got no closer than 43-37 on a Sweet tip-in with 18:52 remaining. West Virginia pushed the lead back to 17 points midway through the second half.
Pittsnogle, who has been battling the stomach flu for the past week, and Herber combined for 23 of West Virginia’s 55 second-half points.
“I came out in the second half and decided to forget about being sick,” Pittsnogle said. “I definitely felt like I was in a zone during the second half. I could not be stopped.”
Seton Hall played its second game without swingman J.R. Morris, who was suspended earlier in the week to focus on academics.
John Allen added 17 points for Seton Hall, Andre Sweet had 14 and Brian Laing 11. Leading scorer Kelly Whitney fouled out midway through the second half and finished with 10 points.