MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — The West Virginia men's basketball team was chasing “fool's gold” in the second half when the roof of the mine was caving in, but it blew out of town when things went sour. All thanks to former teammate Joe Toussaint. A Texas Tech team that fell apart last summer was able to turn an early 16-point deficit into an 81-70 victory Saturday night at the Coliseum.
WVU's quick start included a number of difficult shots as the Red Raiders tried to figure out what they could do. Toussaint was among those who had trouble finding the right formulation early on.
“Honestly, it was just defense,” Toussaint said. “Usually our offense affects our defense, but today we weren't going to do that. I wasn't going to hold back and I ended up getting into a few guys' faces. So we told them about ourselves, we had to stop people…including me.
“I let go of some simple things. I felt responsible for myself and told them, 'If we want to win this game, we can't keep having incidents like this.'”
Toussaint and Texas Tech adjusted in the first half, but WVU was unable to follow suit, chasing what first-year coach Josh Eilert called “fool's gold.”
“I hit some shots early on and they were really difficult shots,” Eilert explained. “It's fool's gold. If those shots fall early and it's a difficult shot, you think you can live with that, but you can't live with that.”
Indeed, one would think that a school in a state whose culture and history are centered around mining, be it coal or gold, would be smart enough not to be fooled by fool's money.
But that wasn't the case in West Virginia.
At halftime, he was shooting 62% from the floor and 62% from 3-point range.
Rather than thinking it would last, it was rather clear that it couldn't be sustained for 40 minutes, and considering the Mountaineers' lead was only six points in the first half, warning sirens were ringing in their ears. I should have been screaming.
Maybe they just couldn't hear them amid the jubilation of the 11,313-strong crowd that gathered for the season's penultimate home game heading into the second half — even for the Mountaineers this season. It happens often. It all came crashing down at 9-21.
“I challenged them at halftime and told them the first four minutes are going to be the match. The first four minutes of the first half are critical. As a result, it went the other way for us really quickly. . No matter how hard I tried, the bleeding wouldn't stop.”
The second half was a bloody mess, with the Mountaineers jumping out to a 20-4 lead eight minutes into the game, only to see that lead gradually disappear. Toussaint's two baskets late in the first half brought Texas Tech within 45-39 at halftime.
In the second half, Toussaint took control of the game. He scored nine points and dished out six assists as Texas Tech defeated WVU 42-25. That's a big number on its own, but when you consider that the entire Mountaineers team had just seven assists in the same first half, you can see how big of a role he played.
And that doesn't even count his three steals, which helped disrupt WVU's offense.
Toussaint's 21 points against WVU were just one shy of his career high, and he's had quite the career as he played in his 127th college game. Interestingly, his career high of 22 points came when he was a Mountaineer against Texas Tech, the team he currently represents.
Toussaint said he approached this game like any other game despite his shoulder injury, but it was different for him. Because the boy from New York City was back East and his father and family were able to come to watch his games in the Big 13 or so.
Eilat considered himself ready to deal with Toussaint.
“Joe, we all know who Joe Toussaint is and how he plays…he's a bulldog on the floor defensively,” he said during a midweek media session. Ta.
“I'm sure he's going to come back to Morgantown with a shoulder injury and wreak havoc, so we've got to take care of the ball.”
It didn't happen. WVU was 8-for-14 from Texas Tech's turnovers, and Texas Tech turned 14 turnovers into 16 points and forced the Red Raiders to take 16 more shots than WVU during the game.
“We have to take better care of our property,” Eilert said.
