Josh Cohen scored 19 points and Robert Davis finished with 18 to lead UMass to an 87-79 victory over West Virginia on Saturday at the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic in Springfield, Mass.
Davis made 6 of 9 3-point attempts and Cohen grabbed seven rebounds.
West Virginia (4-6) trailed by 18 with 18:26 to play but tied the game on a Seth Wilson 3-pointer with 9:04 left. UMass (6-2) led 70-69 with 3:18 remaining and took control by scoring the next eight points.
Kerr Kriisa scored 20 points in his first game with West Virginia. Kriisa, who transferred from Arizona, was suspended for the first nine games for accepting impermissible benefits during his time at Arizona.
Quinn Slazinski added 20 points for the Mountaineers, who missed eight straight field goal attempts after making it 70-69 on a Pat Suemnick layup.
West Virginia guards RaeQuan Battle and Noah Farrakhan were also eligible to make their Mountaineer debuts Saturday. As two-time transfers, NCAA rules made both players ineligible for West Virginia’s first nine games.
A temporary restraining order that created a 14-day eligibility window for two-time undergraduate transfers was granted Wednesday, and then converted to a preliminary injunction on Friday. Friday’s ruling prevents the NCAA from enforcing its two-time transfer rule until the end of the 2023-24 season.
Farrakhan scored 15 points in 18 minutes before he fouled out, but Battle did not play with what West Virginia called “flu-like” symptoms.
Matt Cross had 13 points and 13 rebounds for the Minutemen, who also received a 15-point performance from Rahsool Diggins.
West Virginia led 21-20 but UMass went on a 10-0 run to take a 30-21 lead with 6:18 left in the first half. The Minutemen extended that lead to 44-26 on a Daniel Hankins-Sanford jumper with 1:46 remaining in the first half.
West Virginia missed six of its last seven field goal attempts in the half and trailed 44-29 after 20 minutes.
–Field Level Media