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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The concluding game of West Virginia’s four-game homestand will take place Sunday afternoon at the WVU Coliseum when the Mountaineers play host to 6-9 Mercyhurst.
It is West Virginia’s final nonconference game before starting Big 12 play against eighth-ranked Kansas on Tuesday, Dec. 31 at Allen Fieldhouse.
“Like I told our guys, ‘We’ve got one left, so we’ve got to make sure we finish before we go home for Christmas,'” West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said.
The Lakers have made the jump to Division I this year and are competing in the Northeast Conference. The leap has been somewhat turbulent so far with losses to George Washington, Columbia, Air Force, California, San Francisco, Lafayette, Kent State and Binghamton on the docket.
Mercyhurst does own victories over Morgan State, Houghton, Canisius, Mount Aloysius, Sacramento State and Penn State Altoona.
Against Morgan State, Mercyhurst got 16 points off the bench from 6-foot-8 freshman forward Mykolas Ivanauskas in a 78-73 victory.
Senior guard Bernie Blunt III was the star of the Canisius triumph with 16 points and was also top point-man with 25 in the Lakers’ 66-60 win at Sacramento State.
Forward Jeff Planutis was Mercyhurst’s top scorer with 13 points in Wednesday night’s 62-60 loss at Binghamton.
The Lakers led that game 28-24 at halftime.
Planutis, a 6-foot-6 senior forward, was the team’s leading scorer last year when Mercyhurst competed in the Division II ranks in the PSAC. He averaged 17.8 points and grabbed 3.8 rebounds per game last year.
He’s one of three double figure scorers for the Lakers this year, averaging 14.9 points per game.
Aiden Reichert, a 6-foot-4 senior forward, is averaging 11.6 points and 4.9 rebounds while Blunt, a 5-foot-11 guard, is scoring at a 10.2 points-per-game clip.
West Virginia, meanwhile, boosted its record to 8-2 with an 84-61 victory over Bethune-Cookman last Saturday evening. Guard Javon Small scored 27 points, while forward Amani Hansberry contributed 16.
Freshman guard Jonathan Powell, starting in place of injured Tucker DeVries, added 14. DeVries missed his second straight game with an undisclosed upper body injury.
Small has scored 20 or more points in five of his last seven games and is now averaging 19.8 points per contest, which is tied with Utah’s Gabe Madsen for the tops in the Big 12 Conference this week.
No games were scheduled with final examinations taking place this week at West Virginia University.
“Typically, finals week can be a little challenging because you’ve got exams going on, but our guys have had a really good week,” DeVries said. “I thought they have been pretty focused with good energy, especially when you don’t have a game for a whole week.”
DeVries said the emphasis has been mostly on themselves since last Saturday’s game.
“Our whole focus this week has been on cleaning up the offensive execution things with some guys in different roles,” the coach explained. “And then the rebounding piece, because we’ve got to continue to make some strides there.”
The Mountaineers’ improved six spots to No. 28 in the latest NCAA NET rankings. West Virginia is currently 2-1 versus Quad 1 teams, 0-1 against Quad 2 teams, 1-0 versus Quad 3 teams and 5-0 against Quad 4 teams.
Gonzaga, which WVU defeated 86-78 in the Bahamas back on Nov. 27, is rated fourth this week, but Georgetown is another nonconference opponent to keep an eye on. The 9-2 Hoyas recently earned victories over Syracuse and Creighton and jumped 16 spots to No. 79 this week.
West Virginia defeated Georgetown 73-60 at the Coliseum on Friday, Dec. 6.
ESPN+ will televise Sunday’s game, set to tip off at 2 p.m. Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and David Kahn will get things started at 1 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com as well as the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
This will be Mercyhurst’s first-ever visit to the WVU Coliseum.
