The WVU Tech men’s basketball team has thrived by taking what the defense gives it.
Thursday night inside the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center it was the paint that was open and the Golden Bears held a massive block party at the expense of longtime rival Rio Grande.
The leader of party for Tech was Thomas Hailey who rattled the rim with numerous jams, scoring 20 of his career high 21 points down low in a 70-56 win.
Hailey also grabbed eight rebounds, handed out five assists and had two steals, playing 37 minutes in the contest.
Overall the Golden Bears outscored the Red Storm 40-18 in the paint.
“With Tamon (Scruggs) being out lately, Thomas has really grown up. I don’t think people understand how good Thomas is,” WVU Tech head coach James Long said. “We see it at practice everyday and confidence is being instilled in him. He is a great kid and is really talented.”
Defense was the name of the game early, with both teams making it difficult to score. After the first 11 minutes, the Golden Bears held a two-point lead.
Tech separated the game by outscoring the Red Storm 12-0 over the final four minutes of the first half.
A strong drive by Andrew Work ignited the run which included two slams from Ashton Parker and a triple from Keondre King.
The spurt gave Tech a 33-15 lead at halftime.
“First half we were super locked in defensively and we were executing what we wanted to do going into the game,” assistant coach Payton Sturm said. “Give credit to Rio, they made some adjustments coming out in the second half. We had to change up some things we were doing in the first half.”
One thing that changed in the second half was Red Storm standout Miki Tadic started to heat up from all over the floor.
Two long balls from Tadic helped Rio cut the Tech lead back to 11 points just over three minutes into the second half.
“Miki is one of the best players in the conference,” Long said. “We lost him a couple of times, but he definitely was one of our three main keys tonight. It was a little frustrating. He is a really good player, but we can’t let someone have a second half like that on us.”
While Tech was struggling to stop Tadic, Hailey continued to work his magic in the lane going for back-to-back slams on two separate occasions.
However, Tadic made the 16-point lead vanish quickly when he outscored Tech 10-2 by himself to make it a 54-46 game.
Leading by nine with seven minutes to play, Tech inserted the final dagger with a 9-0 run.
A bucket from Hailey and two free throws from Work were followed by a corner 3-ball by King off an assist from Juvante Hayes.
“Keondre has probably been our most consistent guy since around the middle of November,” Sturm said. “He is an example of a kid that came in for two years, kept his head down and just went to work. Now in his third season, he is really reaping the benefits and playing his best basketball.”
The decisive run was capped by a steal from King who found Work slashing to the rim for a tomahawk dunk and an 18-point lead.
“Luckily we also picked it up offensively in the second half. Rio made some shots that they weren’t making in the first half,” Sturm said. “We kinda let down some on our contested shots as well, which leads to more makes. They spread us out and got us to collapse the defense and we struggled to get out to shooters.”
Work and King both finished with 15 points, while Parker scored eight. Tadic led all scorers with 28.
“We are just going to take what the defense gives us and our guys do a great job of that. They are really good at playing off of each other and they understand the game,” Long said. The first half was definitely one of the better defensive halves we have had here recently. We were a little short-handed today. We played seven guys and they played really hard for 40 minutes. We got a good win against a tough team.
Next up for the Golden Bears is another tough road game Saturday at Indiana University-East.
RG: 15 41 – 56
WVUT: 33 37 – 70
Rio Grande
Miki Tadic 28, Caleb Wallis 8, Taylor Mack 11, Shiloah Blevins 9. Totals: 22-51 5-12 56.
WVU Tech
Andrew Work 15, Andreas Jonsson 4, Keondre’ King 15, Gunner Short 7, Thomas Hailey. Ashton Parker 8. Totals: 28-46 7-16 70.
3-pointers – RG: 7 (Tadic 6, Walls); WVUT: 7 (Jonsson, King 5, Short).