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Seton Hall Preview
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
February 16, 2007
 GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A lot of the guesswork has already been removed when West Virginia plays host to Seton Hall Saturday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum. The two teams played just 14 days ago in East Rutherford, N.J., with West Virginia claiming an 81-70 victory.
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John Beilein has a discussion with Georgetown coach John Thompson and the referees during Monday night's game in Georgetown. West Virginia lost 71-53.
AP photo
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“The first time it’s harder to prepare but it’s not any easier to beat them the second time,” said West Virginia coach John Beilein.
The Mountaineers staked out to an early 19-point lead before Seton Hall went on a run to close the score to 37-31 at halftime. The Pirates got 23 points from freshman point guard Eugene Harvey and 22 points from forward Brian Laing for the game.
WVU freshman Da’Sean Butler came off the bench to score a season-high 21 points and Darris Nichols added 16 points and committed just two turnovers against constant Seton Hall pressure.
“Darris has been terrific and they really tried to take the ball out of his hands and tried to make Al (Ruoff) handle it,” Beilein said. “I thought Al did a great job of handling it. We hope that Joe Mazzulla will be able to give us some minutes as well as Ted Talkington – hopefully they will be able to give our starters some more rest.”
West Virginia (19-6, 7-5) is coming off a brutal six-day stretch that saw it play Top 15 teams Pitt, UCLA and Georgetown. Last Monday, the Mountaineers dropped a 71-53 decision to the Hoyas. The 18-point loss matches WVU’s largest defeat of the year -- an 81-63 loss at Marquette on Jan. 13.
“We got to take a day off on Wednesday but we practiced pretty well yesterday and had a good workout today,” Beilein said. “We’re pretty young so we can bounce back a little bit quicker. We gave Frank and Darris and the guys that are playing huge minutes more time than the other guys.”
Young continues to lead West Virginia in scoring averaging 14.1 points per game. The senior forward is shooting 41 percent overall and has made a team-best 78 3-point field goals.
Joe Alexander is averaging 12.1 points per game despite a tough three-game stretch that saw the sophomore make just 7 of his 27 field goal attempts. Alexander did finish with 10 points on 4 of 8 shooting against Georgetown Monday night.
Butler is averaging 10.1 points per game coming off the bench for the Mountaineers.
Seton Hall, meanwhile, has dropped three straight and six of its last seven to fall to 12-12, 3-8. The Pirates have lost all five Big East road games including a 67-55 defeat at Connecticut on Wednesday night. Seton Hall shot just 28.8 percent against the Huskies.
Laing and Harvey are Seton Hall’s two primary scoring threats, averaging a combined 31.7 points per game.
In West Virginia previous victory against the Pirates, the Mountaineers’ 1-3-1 zone defense caused some problems for Seton Hall’s young backcourt.
“We did some run-out baskets because of it but actually our man-to-man was more effective as far as points per possession,” Beilein said. “We’ll apply everything that we have in our package. I don’t know if anyone has seen our whole package because we haven’t brought it all out a great deal.”
Pirate guard Paul Gause continues to rank among the nation’s leaders in steals with 80. He had four steals against West Virginia on Feb. 3.
“They present problems because of their quickness and their ability to steal the ball,” Beilein said. “Gause had six the other night so he’s one of the very best in the country. We don’t have a defense for it. It’s usually a basket at the other end.
“You hope your team is ready for almost anything but you do guess a little bit,” said Beilein. “You can’t do a whole lot of major, major changes right now. It was very, very close and it could have ended up either way.”
Saturday’s game will be televised on ESPN Plus (John Sanders and Perry Clark). Stations carrying the game locally include WVAH (Charleston), WOAY (Beckley), WVFX (Clarksburg), WTOV (Steubenville, Ohio), WTAP (Parkersburg), and WJAL (Chambersburg, Pa.).
Tip off is set for 4 pm. Prior to the game, West Virginia University will dedicate a new bronze statue of all-time great Jerry West in a ceremony that will take place outside the arena at 1:45 pm.
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