West Virginia Clashes with Georgetown in the Big 12-Big East Battle

The Hoyas come to the WVU Coliseum searching for their first quality win of the season.

West Virginia University guard Toby Okani. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

West Virginia is coming off an incredible three games at the Battle 4 Atlantis where they surprisingly placed third in a loaded eight-team tournament, knocking off a top three Gonzaga team and a nationally ranked Arizona squad.

“I think our guys learned a lot about their ability to compete at a high level,” said West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries. “We played three really quality teams in a three-day span and got put in some adverse situations with the three overtimes. From a coaching staff perspective, team perspective, I think we got a lot of valuable things that we can take from it, good and bad, but overall, I thought the guys really competed and did some good things.”

Senior guard Javon Small averaged 23.7 points and 5.7 assists in the three games and senior forward Tucker DeVries put up a season-high 26 points on eight made threes in the last outing in the win over Arizona.

The Mountaineers (5-2) return home to play an old Big East rival in Georgetown Friday night as part of the Big 12-Big East Battle. The Hoyas (7-1) only loss came in this early portion of the season was against Notre Dame, another old Big East foe, in the third game of the season.

Ed Cooley is in his second season at the helm. Cooley became prominent name around college basketball during his time at Providence, producing seven NCAA tournament appearance in 12 seasons, including a program record five consecutive NCAA selections.

The Hoyas struggled in his first season with just nine wins but is now just two victories away from matching the total a year ago.

“Georgetown is obviously playing really well – got a good record,” said DeVries. “They’re excited, they’re doing some good things, so it’s a great game for our fanbase and a great challenge for us as well.”

The Hoyas are led by six-foot-ten forward Thomas Sorber. The freshman is nearly averaging a double-double with 15.8 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and has 14 blocks on the season.

“He’s good,” DeVries stated. “They throw it in there to him. He’s been really efficient down there – effective finishing around the rim. He can step out a little bit too.”

Georgetown also has a trio of guards that are averaging 41.6 points and 11 assists per game.

Micah Peavy leads the group with 14.8 ppg. The six-foot-eight TCU transfer is shooting 41.2% from three-point range. The senior was 4-3 against the Mountaineers in his time at TCU, including a pair of wins last season, and averaged 9.0 points in the seven contests.

Junior Jayden Epps has made a team-high 17 threes to average 13.9 ppg while sophomore Malik Mack is tied with Peavy for a team-best 4.1 assists per game while averaging 13.0 ppg behind a three-point shooting percentage of 40.6%.  

“They’re very good scorers” DeVries said. “They’re very aggressive. You have three of them out there, with an inside presence, that certainly creates some challenges for your defense, but they can go get a bucket on their own or they can get it within the framework of a lot of the sets they run, and they run a ton of sets. So, there’s a lot of ways they try to get guys going.”

West Virginia and Georgetown tip-off at 7:00 p.m. EST and the action will broadcast on ESPN2.