West Virginia Routs Frigid Iona Wednesday Night at the Coliseum

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Javon Small’s 23 points powered West Virginia to an 86-43 victory over visiting Iona Wednesday night at the WVU Coliseum.

Small made half of his 14 field goal attempts, including 5 of 9 from 3-point distance, grabbed five rebounds and handed out five assists for the 3-1 Mountaineers.

WVU also got 13 points from Tucker DeVries11 from freshman Jonathan Powell (during a four-minute span in the first half), and 10 points and nine rebounds from Amani Hansberry.

The Mountaineers connected on 15 of their 31 3-point attempts and were 29 of 56 overall from the floor for 51.8%

WVU’s biggest lead was 44 points with 48 seconds remaining.

“I thought defensively we did some really good stuff,” Mountaineer coach Darian DeVries said afterward. “I thought we were really connected and tried to make things as challenging as possible to keep them from getting to the rim. They try and spread you out trying to get as many paint touches as they can so defensively, overall, it was a really good start-to-finish effort for us.”

West Virginia used a 14-2 run during a three-minute stretch in the first half to build a 14-point lead, which quickly swelled to 22 on Small’s basket with 6:55 left.

The Mountaineers hit a lull for the next four minutes, missing seven straight jump shots at one point, before Small’s layup ended the drought.

Iona (1-4) then got a couple of baskets from Adam Nie Jr. and Kernan Bundy ahead of Dejour Reaves’ 3-point try from the corner that got stuck between the rim and the backboard, one of 20 shots missed by the Gaels in the first half.

West Virginia shot well enough early, especially from 3, to force Iona to pull out of her full-court pressure.

Iona, making her first-ever visit to Morgantown, was as frigid as the cold front making her way through the area tonight. The Gaels didn’t convert their 10^th field goal until 30 minutes into the game and finished the night 14 of 59 overall for 23.7%.

James Patterson led Iona with 12 points while Luke Jungers came off the bench to contribute 10. Reaves, Iona’s leading scorer averaging 15.5 points per game, had a miserable night missing all seven of his field goal tries and failing to score.

Iona turned the ball over 21 times leading to 26 West Virginia points and the Mountaineers also outscored the Gaels 24 to 10 in the paint. WVU was credited with 11 blocked shots, four coming from backup forward Eduardo Andreand 11 steals, four credited to Small.

“I thought Javon had a terrific game,” DeVries said. “You go 7 for 14, 5 for 9 from 3, 4 for 5 from the line, five assists, one turnover and four steals. That’s a good night. We challenged him a little bit after our last game because we need him to be more aggressive, not just as a scorer but also as a facilitator.”

Iona scored on just 19 of her 70 possessions tonight.

WVU is now 153-38 against teams making their first appearance at the Coliseum.

West Virginia’s next three games will be in the Bahamas as part of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

WVU will play third-ranked Gonzaga on Wednesday, Nov. 27, at 2:30 pm and will also have games against either 16^th-ranked Indiana or Louisville on Thursday before wrapping up play on Saturday against either 17^th-ranked Arizona, Davidson, Oklahoma or Providence.

All Battle 4 Atlantis games will be televised on ESPN or ESPN2.