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28 March 2010
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The first 20 minutes of West Virginia's East Regional championship game win over Kentucky Saturday night was, well, almost surreal.
It was certainly as bizarre a half as West Virginia - and perhaps Kentucky - has played this season.
After making their first two shots of the game, the Mountaineers then missed 13 in a row before breaking the streak on, of all things, the 3-pointer by Joe Mazzulla. For the uninitiated, Mazzulla last made a jump shot - and this is not an exaggeration - in early December.
Of 2008.
"I've been shooting the ball really well in practice,'' said Mazzulla, who is still recovering from a serious shoulder injury in December of 2008 that forced him to miss most of last season. "And it's always good when you can make your first shot.''
Had that been the wildest thing that happened in the first 20 minutes of West Virginia's 73-66 win it would have been enough. But it wasn't. Mazzulla's shot merely provided a brief end to what had become an 11-0 Kentucky run. The Wildcats would still go on to build their lead to 16-9.
But all of that was merely prelude to maybe the most dazzling four minutes West Virginia is capable of putting together. And the Mountaineers chose just the right time to do it.
Over that span WVU made five of six shots, all of them 3-pointers and four of them by Da'Sean Butler. Butler's spurt - he would score 15 of his 18 points in just 51/2 minutes right there - included a wild, falling-down shot from the top of the key, as well as another from the corner on which he was fouled by Wall and converted the four-point play.
All of those shots were actually planned, because Kentucky was destroying the Mountaineers inside.
"Even when we'd do a good job and get the ball inside, they'd do a good job to alter our shot of block it,'' Huggins said. "So we had to start running sets.''
That was only half of what West Virginia was doing, however. On the defensive end in that same stretch, relying almost exclusively on the 1-3-1 zone, the Mountaineers incredibly held Kentucky without so much as a shot on six of eight possessions. The Wildcats had six of their nine first-half turnovers in that stretch. They would finish the game with 16 turnovers, five by All-America freshman John Wall, who led the nation in turnovers this season.
The end result was a stunning 16-4 run that erased a 16-9 deficit and gave West Virginia a 25-20 lead. Kentucky cut into the lead after that and had an opportunity to tie the game, but WVU escaped with a 28-26 halftime edge.
