West Virginia absolutely needed a win on Saturday.
The Mountaineers had lost three games in a row and five of their past seven outings. In order to keep their already-slim NCAA tournament hopes alive, they had to pull of an upset of No. 19 BYU .
Thanks to an outstanding rebounding effort, West Virginia managed to topple the Cougars for that much-needed victory.
"I told the guys in the locker room that I really felt like today was a byproduct of the previous 72 hours, and just their ability to stay the course, stay together, handle disappointment in the same manner that they handle success, be the same guys, put the same work in, learn from it, not run from it, not point fingers, not blame and getting that 72 hours onto the floor today," West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge told reporters after the win.
The Mountaineers out-rebounded BYU by a 39-29 margin, grabbing 18 offensive boards in the process to score 15 second chance points — quite valuable in the eight-point win.
"I thought we were able to drive the ball and get shots up on the rim," Hodge said. "(Brenen Lorient) was really active, and Harlan (Obioha) and Chance (Moore) just played with a level of urgency once the shot went up and led to some big baskets."
The Cougars, who trailed by 14 points at halftime, did wake up in the second half to cut the deficit to three in the final minutes, but West Virginia refused to balk at the comeback and held strong for the victory.
"They made their run, which we figured they would. If you kind of followed them this year, they, similarly to us, have dug themselves some big holes and then had the ability to dig themselves out of those holes," Hodge said of BYU.
"This group stays together about as good as any team I've been around and made the plays down the stretch. Then obviously, the rebounding differential was probably the separator in the game."
With the win, West Virginia moves to 8-8 in Big 12 play and 17-12 overall in Hodge's first year with the program.
But more than just a single victory, beating BYU represents the highest point of the Hodge era thus far in Morgantown.
"Obviously, Hope Coliseum was special," Hodge said. "It's what makes this place special. Obviously, we lost a couple of tough ones. Again, people were hanging in there with us. It was a special environment."
