Xavier shot 62.5% in the second half to outgun West Virginia 84-74 in a Big 12-Big East Battle at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Saturday night.
West Virginia led for a good portion of tonight's game, including an 11-point advantage with 2:42 left in the first half.
But it was a tale of two halves for the Mountaineers, now 6-2. WVU shot 53.6% in the first half, including 7-of-9 from 3-point distance with two of those triples by Emmitt Matthews Jr. and Seth Wilson going in off the glass.
The good fortune West Virginia enjoyed in the first half evaporated during the game's final six minutes when it made just one of its final 12 field goal attempts, that coming on Joe Toussaint's layup with 4:26 to go to reduce Xavier's lead to 73-72.
The only other points WVU scored were Toussaint's two free throws with 1:08 left when Xavier was leading by 10.
"I thought we were a totally different team in the second half, for whatever reason," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "We had guys in foul trouble and you've got to take them out when they get three fouls that early in the game and they didn't respond the way that you would hope that they would when they got back in."
Jimmy Bell Jr., Toussaint and Tre Mitchell finished the game with four fouls each while Matthews Jr. and Erik Stevenson had three fouls.
The Musketeers made 28 of their 52 field goal attempts for 53.8% and doubled up the Mountaineers at the free throw line taking 30 free throws to West Virginia's 15.
Xavier converted 23 of theirs while West Virginia cashed in on 11 with a couple of critical misses in the second half on the front end of one-and-ones.
Souley Boum led the way for the Musketeers with 23 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor and 11-of-14 from the line.
Seven-foot center Jack Nunge contributed 17 points and a game-high 14 rebounds, while Colby Jones tallied 14 points and Adam Kunkel chipped in with 11.
"They made some 3s and drove it at the rim and got fouled," Huggins said. "They're making three-point plays while we're giving away two-point plays."
Xavier beat West Virginia 34-28 on the glass and actually outscored the Mountaineers 17-9 on turnovers despite committing three more miscues than WVU.
Xavier had the edge in second-chance points, 14-6, as well as points in the paint, 42-32.
"How many layups did we miss? How many second-chance points did we miss? How many wide-open jump shots did we miss?" Huggins said. "The difference in the game was when they had those kind of opportunities they capitalized and when we had those kind of opportunities we did not."
Stevenson led WVU with 16 points, but only two of those came after intermission. Bell Jr. tallied a season-high 12 points, making all five of his field goal attempts, while Matthews Jr. tossed in 12.
WVU shot 38.7% in the second half and was only 2-of-10 from 3-point distance.
Tonight's game was just the third meeting between these two schools, Xavier now claiming two of the three. The Musketeers' other win came in the Sweet 16 round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament in overtime, 79-75 when Sean Miller was in his first coaching stint at Xavier.
Tonight's victory boosts Xavier's record to 6-3 and puts the Big East back in the lead in this year's challenge, 5-4, with one game left tomorrow when St. John's plays at Iowa State.
West Virginia will face Navy on Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum to begin a four-game homestand before the start of Big 12 play at Kansas State on Saturday, Dec. 31.
WVU's other home dates are against UAB (Dec. 10), Buffalo (Dec. 18) and Stony Brook (Dec. 22).
Tickets for those games are available through the Mountaineer Ticket Office and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
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