Unfortunately, the Mountaineers came up short in overtime yesterday against Louisville, but have another opportunity to get back into the win column today in the 3rd Place game against Arizona.
MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — After stunning #3 Gonzaga in the quarterfinals and losing yesterday to Louisville in the semifinals of the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise Island, Bahamas, the West Virginia Mountaineers are back in action today for the third day in a row against another top opponent.
West Virginia, 4-2, will play against the #24 ranked Arizona Wildcats today at 3:00PM in their final game of the tournament in the Bahamas. The game will be for 3rd Place in the tournament. Oklahoma, who beat Arizona yesterday, and Louisville, who beat the Mountaineers in overtime, will play later for the championship.
Arizona is 3-3 on the season with wins over Canisius (93-64), Old Dominion (102-44) and Davidson 104-71) and with losses to #15 Wisconsin (103-88), #11 Duke (69-55) and yesterday against the Oklahoma Sooners (82-77).
After today’s game, the Mountaineers will have a short break before returning home to play the Georgetown Hoyas on Friday, December 6 at 7:00PM.
Following West Virginia’s upset win over Gonzaga, head coach Darian DeVries had the following to say about his team: “It’s not really a statement or anything,” DeVries said. “Like, our whole focus has been just on us trying to be the best version of ourselves. Like, we don’t really listen to a lot of outside stuff because we know what’s going on in practice every day and the progress we need to make,” DeVries said. “By no means have we arrived or anything. We had a great win, a great 45 minutes, but we still have plenty of room to grow into, and we look forward to continuing to do that.”
Through 6 games, senior guard Javon Small leads the Mountaineers, averaging 19.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.8 steals per game. He’s shooting 46.4% from the field, 82.1% from the foul line, and 42.9% from three point range. Senior guard/forward Tucker DeVries is averaging 13.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game, and sophomore forward/center Amani Hansberry is averaging 12.5 points and 7.2 rebounds per game for the Mountaineers.
