West Virginia, without Tucker DeVries, was in complete control for most of the game, defeating North Carolina Central 79-45 on Tuesday.
With the win, WVU improves to 7-2, their third win in a row. North Carolina Central moves to 4-8.
Jonathan Powell led all scorers with 17 points, which is his new career-high. Joseph Yesufu had 14 and Javon Small 12.
As a team, WVU forced 14 turnovers and out-rebounded the Eagles 45-30. The Mountaineers led nearly the entire game.
The Mountaineers got off to a slow start. By the U16 timeout, they had made just one of their first four shot attempts and committed three turnovers.
Coming out of the timeout, they really got things going. They hit shot after shot and soon led by double digits.
With Tucker DeVries out, true freshmen Jonathan Powell and KJ Tenner saw a good amount of minutes in the early going. With less than eight minutes left in the first half, they were the two highest-scoring Mountaineers, with Powell having six points and Tenner five.
With under 10 minutes left to play in the first half, North Carolina Central made a 7-0 run, cutting the deficit. With under four minutes left, WVU turned around 10-0 run that had them leading by close to 20 before half.
At halftime, the Mountaineers led 36-18. They had eight different scorers in the first half.
Yesufu, who hadn’t seen a ton of minutes in the first eight games of the season, helped West Virginia build their lead before heading into the locker room. He had 11 points in nine points and led all scorers at that point.
West Virginia continued to build their lead in the second half. They had a 9-0 run early in the second half.
With West Virginia’s lead nearing 30 with under five minutes left to play, Jake Auer and Harris Elezovic checked in. Both scored, making a total of 10 different Mountaineers who scored in the contest.
In the end, West Virginia closed out a 79-45 win. They’ll take on Bethune Cookman at home on Saturday at 5 p.m.
