West Virginia surprises No. 24 Arizona to take 3rd place in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament

West Virginia received 26 points Tucker DeVries to last 24^Th-ranked Arizona 83-76 in overtime in the third place game at this year’s Bad Boys Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis at the Atlantis Resort Imperial Arena in Paradise Island, Bahamas.

It was the third straight overtime game for WVU, which swept third-place Gonzaga two days ago and then lost to Louisville yesterday.

“I’ve been coaching for 27 years now and I don’t know that I’ve ever had a group of three games like this where I was more impressed and more proud of a group of men who showed incredible fight , determination and toughness,” said the West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said. “Perhaps even more important is solidarity. They just refused to stop.”

It is believed to be the first time in school history that West Virginia has played three consecutive overtime games.

Today, DeVries was virtually unstoppable at times, especially from behind the 3-point arc, where he made 8 of 12, including some from just in front of the halfway line. DeVries had 17 points at halftime, giving WVU a 39-37 lead at the break.

“We had to get (Tucker) to give us that other scoring option,” DeVries said. “We didn’t make him look clean enough and he was kind of forgotten in our offense. He was able to get out of a few falls and get some exercise, plus he opened up some opportunities for other people.”

WVU, substitute Eduaro Andre after his injury yesterday against Louisville and still without a substitute Jayden Stonehad to move the senior striker a player deeper onto the bench Haris Elezovic getting his first meaningful minutes of the season. Elezovic didn’t score, but grabbed two rebounds in seven minutes of play.

“When we line up and play, there are no excuses,” DeVries said. “We have 40 minutes to win the game so let’s find out and I think they did an incredible job (today) of coming together to find a way to get another win in the To win extra time.”

With less than four minutes left, the Mountaineers (5-2) appeared to have the game under control Javon Smalls Two free throws gave them a 63-56 lead, but empty possessions allowed the Wildcats to fight back.

KJ Lewis converted a traditional three-point play to cut West Virginia’s lead to four, and then Jaden Bradley’s layup made it a two-point game with three minutes left.

Toby Okani answered with a corner 3 with 2:06 left, but that was WVU’s last field goal of regulation time.

Trey Townsend converted a layup with 47 seconds left and Caleb Love hit a transition 3 with 14 seconds left to tie the game.

After a break in West Virginia Tucker DeVries was unable to get his shot to the free throw line to win the game.

In extra time Amani Hansberry got it all going with a jumper and then DeVries hit another three-pointer to give WVU a 71-66 lead. The lead grew to eight on two small free throws with 1:32 left and reached eight again on two more small charity throws with 27 seconds left.

“I thought the guys did an incredible job in overtime,” DeVries said. “We got moving again and like I told our guys, I’m still learning how to play with them at the end of games and we were a little too happy with the iso.”

“We tried to keep up late in the game and didn’t have a lot of possession there. “So we wanted to go back to what gave us some success, focusing more on our off-ball movement and getting them to chase us a little bit,” DeVries said.

WVU won today’s game despite a shooting percentage of 45.3% to 39.7% and a shooting percentage of 38 to 20 in the paint.


The Mountaineers made up for it with a 24-6 point advantage in turnovers and their 21 assists on 27 made baskets.


Okani contributed a season-high 20 on 7 of 11 shooting, while Small, who scored 57 points in the first two games of the tournament against Gonzaga and Louisville, scored 14 points this afternoon.


Hansberry contributed 13 points and 10 rebounds. WVU had a 40-39 lead against the much larger Wildcats.


Arizona, which falls to 3-4, got 24 points from Love and 19 from Townsend.


West Virginia is back at the WVU Coliseum next Friday night to take on old Big East foe Georgetown in a Big 12-Big East battle that will be nationally televised on ESPN2.


Tickets are available and can be purchased by logging onto WVUGAME.com.