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New Richmond – With regional seeding still on the line, Wyoming East looked like the best version of itself, attacking Bluefield where it’s weakest.
Wyoming East center Konnor Fox scored a game-high 30 points to go with 18 rebounds, punishing the Beavers inside as the Warriors rolled to a 78-43 win Saturday afternoon in New Richmond.
With Bluefield relying on JV players to fill out a roster decimated by injuries and departures, East happily spammed the post, saddling Fox who finished 13 of 26 from the field. His success was emblematic of East’s with the Warriors crushing the Beavers 44-22 on the boards.
“I think he’s growing in the fact that he’s handling hard better,” Wyoming East head coach Kent McBride said. “Konnor’s only drawback sometimes is Konnor, and he knows that. We have conversations about it, but he’s doing a better job of when something doesn’t go his way, whether it’s missed layup or he feels like he gets fouled, whatever. He’s doing a better job of moving on and playing the next possession. And when he does that and has a motor, I’m thankful he’s on our team and not the other team.”
Fox’s presence also benefited his teammates in the inside-out game. East nailed 11 3-pointers, including 10 through the first three quarters while firing at a 50 percent clip from beyond and inside the arc halfway through the third quarter.
Talan Muscari led the assault form deep with five 3s while Braxton Morgan (2) and Zach Hunt (3) proved deadly as well.
“We knew they were shorthanded around the rim and we just wanted to play downhill first,” McBride said. “I think when our offense has struggled, it’s when we play perimeter first and not downhill and whether that’s throw it into the our guys in the paint, drive in the paint or rebound it, we wanted to play downhill first and then take what comes off of that. We knew we had a size advantage, and on top of the size advantage, we needed to make sure that that’s what makes us good, whether it’s Bluefield or whoever, that’s what makes our offense better.”
Fox was dominant from the jump, scoring nine of East’s first 11 points, helping the Warriors to an early 11-3 advantage.
Jase Smith, who led Bluefield with 21 points, nailed a floater to make it 11-5 but with Fox established the outside game opened. A kick from Hunt to Muscari for 3 made it 14-5 before Devin Totten answered with his own trey for Bluefield.
It was only a momentary pause of momentum with Muscari true from 3 again the next trip down, putting the hosts up 17-8 after a quarter.
From there it was rinse and repeat.
Hunt broke the ice in the second quarter with a 3 before Fox connected again inside the paint on back to back buckets to make it 24-8.
The game was never close afterwards with East leading by double figure the rest of the way, seeing its lead swell to as many as 19 points in the first half.
Bluefield briefly cut it to 16 in the third quarter but a trio of 3s from Morgan and Johnson ended any comeback bids.
The Beavers were plagued by a rough shooting percentage (33 percent from the floor), but suffered as much from second chance opportunities, allowing Wyoming East to collect more offensive rebounds (25) than defensive rebounds (19).
For East it was a glimpse of what could be ahead in the postseason with McBride six weeks into the job.
“We’ve worked really hard the last two weeks on finding some offensive continuity,” McBride said. “If I were to take ownership of the situation, when we started, we overloaded these guys and about two weeks ago we didn’t have anything we felt we were great at. So in the last two weeks, we’ve just simplified it and went to some basic things and I think it’s slowed our guys’ minds down and let good players be good players.”
Muscari joined Fox in double figures with 16 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.
B: 8 12 10 13 – 43
WE: 17 21 20 20 – 78
Bluefield
Amari Helm 6, Jase Smith 21, Ricky Dunford 8, Devin Totten 6, B. Pennington 2
Wyoming East
Talan Muscari 16, Broc Johnson 9, Zach Hunt 9, Braxton Morgan 9, Konnor Fox 30, Corey Hall 4
