West Virginia gets hot in second half, routs No. 1 Baylor in Morgantown, 89-68

The newly crowned No. 1 team in the nation won’t get to hold on to that ranking very long, as the West Virginia Mountaineers took down the Baylor Bears this evening in Morgantown in front of a sold out home crowd, 89-68.

The Mountaineers (14-2, 3-1) started things off by jumping out to a 3-0 lead to start the game, and didn’t give up the lead at any point despite the Bears (15-1, 3-1) threatening in the back end of the first half.

West Virginia’s offense was lead by Senior forwards Nathan Adrian and Junior guard Jevon Carter for most of the game. Adrian had a career night, with a team high with 22 points on 7-of-10 from the field and 6 rebounds. Carter chipped in 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting, 7 assists and 5 steals.

Baylor was led by Jo Lual-Acuil Jr, Al Freeman and Terry Maston, all of whom finished the game with 10 points.

West Virginia forced Baylor into 16 turnovers in the first 13 minutes of the game, but the Mountaineers hit a slump in the last 7 minutes of the first half that allowed Baylor to close the Mountaineers’ lead to 4 points with two minutes left in the half. West Virginia would take a 7 point lead to the locker room at the half, and that would be the closest the Bears would get.

The Mountaineers turned the pressure back up in the second half and forced 13 more turnovers, finishing the game with 29 points off 29 turnovers. West Virginia finished the game shooting 47.8% (45% from beyond the arc) to Baylor’s 44.6%. The Mountaineers and Bears both shot 60.9% from the charity stripe, each going 14-of-23 from the line.

West Virginia will travel to Austin, TX on Saturday to take on the Texas Longhorns (7-8, 1-2). That game will be televised on ESPN 2 at 4:00PM EST.