After spending the first round of the WVIAC tournament idle, the West Liberty men’s basketball team will take the court tonight at 8:30 when they face Shepherd University at the Charleston Civic Center. The Rams advanced to the quarterfinals after a 77-66 up-set win against West Virginia State in Institute, W.Va. on Feb. 27.
WLU may have got lucky by drawing Shepherd instead of W.V. State, even though both teams had .500 records. I say this because State always seems give West Liberty a tough game. WLU had to break open a tight game with an 11-0 run in the final four minutes to hand the Yellow jackets an 84-73 loss at Fleming Hall on Feb. 16. In the Hilltoppers only meeting with the Rams, West Liberty hammered Shepherd 100-63 on Feb. 1 at the ASRC to clinch their eighth straight 20-win season.
Shepherd is lead by first-team All-WVIAC jumping jack Chad Moore, who averaged 20.6 ppg. and 9.8 rpg. during the regular season. The junior had 18 points and 12 rebounds in the win against State. Sophomore Marcus Pilgrim went 11-for-11 from the foul line to take game scoring honors with 26 points.
Despite playing without All-WVIAC freshman C.J. Hester in the first matchup, West Liberty needed less than 3 minutes to bolt out to a 15-5 lead and never looked back. A 17-2 run late in the first half sent West Liberty into halftime with a 55-26 lead and WLU led by as many as 41 points down the stretch. Seven Hilltoppers ended the game in double-digit scoring while the team shot nearly 70 percent from the floor in the second half. Sophomore Brantley Osborne had 18 points for Shepherd while Moore added 16 points and 11 rebounds in the loss.
The Rams have momentum on their side after the big win in Institute, but I simply don’t think that Shepherd has the shooting skill or depth to keep up with the Hilltoppers. Expect this game to be a little closer then the last time these two teams met, but don’t expect an upset.
The winner of tonight’s game will play the winner of W.V. Wesleyan/Alderson-Broaddus in the semi-final round on Friday at 8:30 p.m.
You can catch all the action of tonight’s quarterfinal live on WLU TV-14.
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