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MORGANTOWN -- For years West Virginia University men's basketball coach Bob Huggins has used the non-conference portion of the schedule to work on getting his team ready for Big 12 Conference play and to build his players' confidence.
Saturday's next-to-last non-conference tune-up was a chance to do both as the Mountaineers took on a Jacksonville State team that came into the Coliseum with a 7-4 mark, but little success against D-I programs.
One player, former South Charleston High School standout Brandon Knapper, was one of those who came out of Saturday's 74-72 victory with a lot more confidence heading into the holiday break.
"I'm getting my rhythm back," explained Knapper, who tallied 12 points off the bench. "(All the hard work) is paying off."
Knapper, who missed the entire 2017-18 season with a knee injury, joined teammate Wesley Harris in tallying career-best scoring totals. Harris, who's previous best was 18 in the loss to Rhode Island, led the Mountaineers with 20 points while junior Lamont West provided 18 points as WVU shot 45.2 percent for the game (28 of 62) and forced 15 turnovers.
"I don't think there are very many players out there that can miss an entire year and then come back the next year and play like they had never missed a day," Knapper, who contributed two rebounds and three assists for WVU, said. "It took a lot of time in the gym and a lot of hard work to get back to where I feel comfortable out there."
One of those players joining Knapper in the gym is Harris.
"Yeah, we spent a lot of time in the gym after the Rhode Island game working on things," Knapper said. "We fed off one another out there today. He'd get the ball to me when I was open, and I'd get the ball to him when he was open."
And, West Virginia needed every point as JSU's Marion Hunter led all scorers with 26 points.
"They (JSU) are a really nice team. Beating a team like them is a real confidence builder heading into the break. Now we've got one more non-conference game (Lehigh) before we get into the Big 12 and we have got to get all of the little things worked out before that starts."
Tops on that list is turning the ball over themselves.
"We still have a problem of getting the ball to the guy in the same colored uniform," Huggins said. "That's what I was telling the guys (on the bench) as the game was going on.
"They (JSU) had guys open and they were getting the ball into them. We had guys open and we were throwing the ball everywhere."
JSU, which dropped to 7-5 on the season, had two shots at sending the game into overtime or win it outright, but Ty Hudson's missed free throw was rebounded by Jermaine Haley with 26 seconds left and Jason Burnell's 3-pointer with eight ticks left was rebounded by Moundsville's Chase Harler.
Harler finished the game with four points, four assists, two rebounds and one steal and one block while Cameron's Logan Routt chipped in five points, three rebounds and two blocked shots for the Mountaineers.