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Butler, West Virginia dumps Georgetown

Jan 23, 2009 - 5:51 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Da'Sean Butler and West Virginia kicked off the start of a tough stretch in impressive fashion.

Butler scored 27 points and grabbed eight rebounds as West Virginia upset No. 14 Georgetown, 75-58, on Thursday.

Alex Ruoff chipped in 10 points and nine assists for the Mountaineers (14-4, 3-2 Big East), who snapped a three-game losing streak against the Hoyas.

They also got off on the right foot of a five-game stretch in which they face four teams in the top 15, including Pittsburgh, Louisville and Syracuse.

To get his team in the right mindset for this brutal stretch, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins spoke to his team about them being underrated coming into this contest.

"It's not a ploy," he said. "If you look around this league, this league is so hard that if you want to make it to the NCAA Tournament and make another run you have to win games to do that."

The talked worked as the Mountaineers dialed up their defensive intensity, holding the Hoyas to 39 percent (20-of-51) shooting and won the battle inside in points in the paint (34-32) and rebounding (39-31).

"They did the same thing with Roy (Hibbert) last year," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "That's just the way they play, they play everything hard. They play the post hard. We went through stretches where the ball just didn't go in and we got frustrated and it snowballed after that."

Part of that frustration came about near the end of the first half, as the Hoyas missed seven of their last eight shots. Meanwhile, the Mountaineers went on a 9-4 run over the final 3:17 to turn a 22-22 tie into a 31-26 advantage at the break.

West Virginia went on to lead the rest of the way but saw Georgetown (12-5, 3-3) close within 45-43 with 11:50 remaining when Omar Wattad took a pass on a back cut by freshman forward Greg Monroe and completed a tough reverse layup to cap a 10-2 run.

However, the Hoyas then missed their next five shots, allowing the Mountaineers to rebuild a 54-44 advantage on jumper by Wellington Smith with 7:27 to play.

"We went through a stretch that we continued to get the looks that we wanted and the ball just didn't go in the basket," Thompson said. "Then with each possession ... we just got a little too excited at the other end and allowed them to get too many easy looks."

West Virginia also used up a great deal of the clock on a possession that started with 3:27 left, burning up nearly a minute due to three offensive rebounds. During that span, Ruoff split two free throws and Butler capped it with a runner off the glass, making it 65-52 with 2:34 remaining.

"We had more bounce to our step tonight than what we've had, but we play like this every day," Huggins said. "They are really great kids, they really are. We go at it hard every day."

Freshman Darryl Bryant scored 13 points and Smith added 10 for the Mountaineers, who shot 58 percent (18-of-31) in the second half to improve to 2-3 against ranked teams this season.

"If we could have scored the ball we would have won those other games," Huggins said. "Our defense has been solid for us."

Chris Wright scored 13 points and DaJuan Summers added 12 for Georgetown, which dropped its second straight game following a 76-67 loss at No. 2 Duke on Saturday.

Monroe added 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Hoyas despite being one of the main focuses of the Mountaineers' defense.

"All we did was try to limit his touches," Huggins said. "They run so many things through him and he's got such a great understanding of what John (Thompson) wants him to do, so we just tried to limit his touches."