West Virginia holds off Bucknell to set up meeting with Notre Dame

By PAUL GOTHAM

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Nathan Adrian turned in a double-double, and the West Virginia Mountaineers dominated the offensive glass en route to an 86-80 victory over the Bucknell in the opening round of the West Region of the NCAA Tournament at the Key Bank Center, Friday.

Adrian scored 12 points on 6-of-11 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds part of an overall effort which saw the Mountaineers convert 17 offensive rebounds into a 20-6 advantage in second-chance points.

“We lost a lot of rebounding,” Adrian said referring to last year’s seniors Jonathan Holton and Devin Williams. “So I knew someone had to step up and go get those, and I feel I’ve done a decent job at it.”

Jevon Carter grabbed seven rebounds. Asa Ahmad and Elijah Macon corralled six apiece.

“Esa’s getting back to being Esa, and when you got a 6’7″, 6’8″ guy playing against 6’2″, 6’3″ guys, you ought to have an advantage,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said. “I thought he was good, Nate’s always good. Elijah has just gotten better and better. We have to get our guards to do a better job. But I thought those three guys were pretty good. We miss enough shots, you know, there’s enough to go around.”

Adrian’s layup off the window sparked a 15-2 WVU run midway through the first half. The Mountaineers did not trail for the remainder of the contest.

The Mountaineers avoided the first-round exit that they experienced a year ago when as a No. 3-seed they fell to No. 4-seed Stephen F. Austin.

“Personally, it was on my mind a little bit through our practice,” Adrian said. “We didn’t have great practices last year, but this year I thought we prepared a little better. We’ve got to play a little better defense, but we’ll fix it.”

Adrian broke a 10-10 with the  bucket off an inbound play. Dexter Miles, Jr. converted on another inbound play as the Mountaineers converted on four straight baseline out-of-bounds plays.

Kimbal Mackenzie scored seven straight for Bucknell as the Bison cut the lead to four at 29-25. Bucknell stayed within four at 33-29 when Mackenzie scored on the break.

Mackenzie’s triple made it a three-point game at 58-55 with 12:12 to go in the game. It was still a three-point contest the Mackenzie nailed a step back trey for a 63-60 count, but the Bison could not get any closer.

“What Bucknell did was make shots,” Huggins stated. “They don’t always, you know, nobody does, always make shots that well. McKenzie’s 5 for 7 from three and Steven Brown hit some big threes. Seemed like every time we started to get away from them a little bit, they made a three. Foulland is really a good player. He’s a really good player in any league. He’s athletic, and not just at the offensive end, he changed so many shots. He really disrupted us, I think, offensively, with the shot-blocking ability.”

Tarik Phillip led West Virginia with 16 points on seven of seven shooting from the free throw line and four of eight from the floor. Lamont West and Ahmad Esa scored 15 apiece.

Javon Carter chipped in 11.

The Mountaineers shot 21 of 29 from the free throw line.

Mackenzie led Bucknell with 23 points. Stephen Brown and Nana Foulland scored 18 apiece. Zach Thomas added 13.