After catching fire in the first half, a long second-half scoring drought spelled doom for the West Virginia State men's basketball team as the Yellow Jackets fell to UVa.-Wise 91-75 Thursday night at the Walker Convocation Center.
WVSU (6-21, 3-18 Mountain East Conference) went nearly nine minutes without a field goal in the second half, watching a 54-53 lead transform into a 17-point deficit in the process.
"It's a confidence thing, and this group is really struggling to find any confidence right now," West Virginia State coach Bryan Poore said. "They did a pretty good job of manufacturing some of it in the second half, but we just got killed on the boards and we lost our momentum.
"When you lose momentum, you start second-guessing yourself, and it's really hard to come back from that."
The Cavaliers used some efficient offense to help them get the lead back in the second half, shooting 52 percent in the final 20 minutes while the Yellow Jackets made three of the first 18 shots they took to open the second half.
It was a stark contrast from the West Virginia State team that ended the first half. After falling in a hole early and trailing by 12 points, WVSU rallied using an onslaught of 3-pointers. It started with a 10-0 run that made it a 2-point game before a 12-0 run put the Yellow Jackets in control and gave them the momentum in front of their home crowd.
Led by four Tyrie Elliott triples, West Virginia State made its final seven attempts from 3-point range in the first half to head into the locker room on a high note with a 48-43 lead.
"We were a different team there in the first half," Poore said. "We were making sound plays, making extra passes and getting the right guys to take the shots, and they were falling. But you don't get wins at halftime, you've got to play 40 minutes and tonight we played 20."
But after a few minutes of the teams trading blows back and forth to open the second half, UVa.-Wise was able to start to pull away thanks to the play of Michal Seals. In addition to their hot shooting performance, the Cavaliers also outrebounded the Yellow Jackets by 15 boards in the second half and got 10 second-chance points on five offensive rebounds.
Seals finished the game strong, scoring 16 of his game-high 27 points in the second half while Taiwo Badmus provided a solid presence in the frontcourt and Yesid Mosquera-Perea gave the Cavaliers (8-19, 6-15 MEC) a spark off the bench.
"We didn't set the tone in the second half. They just kicked our butts in the second half," Poore said. "They wanted it more than we did in the second half, and they went out and got it."
Badmus finished the game with 17 points and seven rebounds in the victory while Mosquera-Perea added 15 points.
For West Virginia State, senior Terrance Jenkins finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds to earn his third double-double of the season. Elliott and Ernest Jenkins both had 15 points in the loss.
The Yellow Jackets close out the season with a home game against the University of Charleston at 4 p.m. Saturday.
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.