Playing against a short-handed Urbana squad that had five players suspended, West Virginia State bounced back after a loss on Thursday with an 87-76 men's basketball victory over the Blue Knights on Saturday at Walker Convocation Center.
"It was a strange game with the circumstances they had, but we found a way to adjust and make shots and win this one," West Virginia State coach Bryan Poore said.
Ernest Jenkins led the way once again for the Yellow Jackets (3-3, 2-2 Mountain East Conference) as the freshman made 10 3-pointers en route to a game-high 33 points. It was the most 3-pointers made in a game in school history, surpassing the previous record of nine that was held by a number of players, most recently Jason Emerson in 2010.
"They were packing their zone in so much, and after he missed one [Jenkins] seemed a little tentative to shoot it again. I told him to shoot it as much as he could when he was open - I didn't care if he shot 30 from back there," Poore said. "That gave him the freedom to let it go and he's a shooter that we trust to take good shots."
WVSU started out slowly, but after Poore called an early timeout and got the team refocused, the Yellow Jackets were able to get out on a run and seize control of the momentum.
After struggling on the glass against Notre Dame in Thursday's loss, the Yellow Jackets dominated boards, outrebounding the Blue Knights 42-23 and allowing just one offensive rebound in the game - capitalizing on their size advantage against the team that had just one player taller than 6-foot-2.
"We told them before the game that we needed to win the battle on the boards today, we knew it shouldn't have been close," Poore said. "They were just so undermanned, but they had a good game plan and put some pressure on our bigs to guard.
"I'm really pleased with the effort, we could have made some better decisions early on, but we settled in and started playing our game and did a nice job."
It was a positive performance for the Yellow Jackets after such a tough loss to swallow just two days before. With such a young roster, Poore was impressed with the way his group bounced back right away.
For them to respond well after a loss, especially when they started this game slowly, was a nice nod to how much the team has started to make progress in the early part of the season.
"I was pleased with the way our guys responded because in the past our team hasn't done as well with that," Poore said. "Hopefully today was a good sign for us and we can keep improving off of this and keep playing with that same attitude."
Another West Virginia State freshman, Jayson Hankins, had another big game for the Yellow Jackets, finishing with 17 points to go with seven rebounds and five assists.
Sable Cooper came off the bench in the second half and scored 11 points in nine minutes to become the third State player in double figures.
Urbana was led by Carlas Jackson, who finished with 27 points. Demetrius Carr added 17 points while Ethan Snapp and Aarmanni Garnett scored 15 and 13 points, respectively, as the Blue Knights finished the game shooting 60 percent from the field.
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.