Weary WVU can’t hang with Hoyas

NEW YORK — Sometimes you need help, and sometimes you need your legs. West Virginia had neither on Friday.

For two days, Joe Alexander made Madison Square Garden his personal stage, delivering brilliant soliloquies and artistic interpretations of age-old basketball moves in eliminating Providence and Connecticut. But playing a third superb game in three days after seeing 79 minutes of action over the previous two days proved too tough a chore for the junior forward.

For West Virginia to defeat top-seeded Georgetown on Friday night in the Big East Tournament semifinals, Alexander would need help from his teammates, need them to share the offensive load so his legs would be free of some of the burden he carried in bringing the Mountaineers to this point.

But instead, his teammates’ fatigue was as evident as the pep bands. In a first half that saw West Virginia fall behind by 12 points — a margin it would never completely close — the Mountaineers shot just 35 percent en route to a 72-55 loss. With a 2-for-7 first-half performance, Alexander was the biggest perpetrator. Turnarounds and bankshots that the net beckoned on the two previous afternoons were suddenly a bit short or a bit flat.

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