West Virginia Defeats Pesky Nicholls (State) 83-57

“Derek kind of came to life.”

Bob Huggins summed up the Mountaineer victory over Nicholls (State) as Country Roads played over the arena speakers at the Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.

West Virginia defeated a peskier-than-expected Nicholls (State) team 83-57.

Derek Culver was the story of the game notching his third double-double of the season with 16 points and 16 rebounds.

Oscar Tshiebwe also added a double double with 15 points and ten rebounds.

Nicholls (State) was able to hang around in the first half with both teams getting off to a slow start.

At the under-12 minute timeout the score was just 14-12 in favor of the Mountaineers.

Some help from the bench bolstered the Mountaineers as Taz Sherman added eight points in the opening stanza and Sean McNeil made a couple of key shots late in the first half to help the Mountaineers to an eight point halftime advantage, 39-31.

Nicholls would come back to tie the game 43-43 with 16:43 remaining on a D’Angelo Hunter free throw. The Mountaineers would persevere and regain their double digit lead with 12:02 remaining, going up 55-45 on a McNeil three-pointer, and never relinquishing a double digit lead for the rest of the game.

Miles McBride added 15 points and McNeil and Emmitt Matthews both added ten points.

This was the Mountaineers final non-conference home game.

They play next Saturday at 1pm on the road in Derek Culver’s hometown of Youngstown, Ohio against Youngstown State.