Mountaineers heeding DeVries' advice: 'Don't limit yourself on anything' – WV MetroNews

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A full student section stormed the court. Four Mountaineers jumped up to stand on the scorers table. Hugs, handshakes and high fives were exchanged by members of the WVU coaching staff.

West Virginia collected their third victory this season over a Top 10 team in a 64-57 triumph over Iowa State in front of a sellout crowd Saturday at the Coliseum.

An announced crowd of 14,444 on Jerry West Day did their part to get the Mountaineers over the line in the final minutes as they closed the game on a 15-8 run over the final three minutes.

“It was amazing,” said WVU fifth year center Eduardo Andre. “They get you going. When they are yelling, you want to go even harder. You don’t get tired because you are feeding off the crowd. That’s what we need every game. We need a sold-out crowd every game.”

“I am excited for our fan base,” said WVU head coach Darian DeVries. “They had a hand in this one tonight. There’s some very tough places to play in the Big 12. We want our place to certainly be one of them. I felt like it was tonight and the crowd did their part. We had to do our part. But I thought the crowd was very engaged and helped us down the stretch.”

Senior guard Javon Small made just one of his first six shots from the floor in the game but he scored a dozen consecutive points in the closing stretch. Small finished the contest making 9-of-16 shots from the floor with 27 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals.

“He is the Big 12 Player of the Year,” Andre said.

“It is not all about scoring for me. It is just whatever I’ve got to do to help my teammates,” Small said.”

“Like a lot of great players, and it is really fun when you are a coach of one of those, you can tell when they are in that zone,” DeVries said. “You can see it in his eyes. He wanted to take that game over. He even had another three with three minutes to go. I have seen Javon in practice and in games, when he gets in a zone, he is really, really good.”

After a 1-1 week, the Mountaineers will almost certainly reenter the AP Top 25 poll on Monday. West Virginia (13-4, 4-2 Big 12) is tied for fourth in the Big 12 standings and they check in at No. 30 in Sunday’s NCAA NET ratings.

If the Mountaineers can maintain their level of play throughout the second half of their regular season schedule, an NCAA Tournament berth seems very much in reach.

“Like we have talked about with our team from day one, don’t limit yourself on anything. We’re going to come and we’re going to compete. These are the things we feel like we need to be good at to win. Let’s go try and do that,” DeVries said.

“I have never been a guy that was like, ‘Hey, we need to win this many games to be successful’. It is more about how we can maximize this group. If you can do that, your goal is that those wins follow. I think our guys are giving us everything they’ve got. They don’t play perfect every night and I don’t ask them to do that. Just leave it out there. They’ve done a great job of doing that so far this season.”

“We understand how big and how important the game was,” said Small. “We just can’t come out here on Tuesday against Arizona State and blow it off. We just have to keep building up momentum and racking up dubs.”