Tennessee Tennessee/West Virginia W. Virginia Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Tennessee kept getting pushed back and back by West Virginia's zone defense, and the Volunteers kept missing and missing 3-pointers. Until Terrence Woods hit the shot that kept them undefeated.

Woods hit a go-ahead shot with 32 seconds left, only the Vols' sixth 3-pointer in 30 attempts, and No. 7 Tennessee rallied from 10 points down in the second half to beat West Virginia 79-78 Saturday.

The Volunteers missed three consecutive 3-pointers in the final 2½ minutes, all of which would have given them the lead, before Woods connected to give Tennessee (6-0) only its third lead of the second half.

"He's the kind of shooter you always think will make the next one," Tennessee coach Jerry Green said of Woods, who missed his other three 3-point attempts. "He doesn't need much room or much time. He didn't have a great shooting night but I told him if he got the shot, to shoot it."

West Virginia's Tim Lyles then missed an off-balance shot from the lane and Calvin Bowman couldn't hit a followup with six seconds left. Tennessee's Ron Slay and West Virginia's Lionel Armstead each hit two free throws in the closing seconds.

"When you play a top 10 club and almost beat them, the players have to feel they're pretty good," said West Virginia coach Gale Catlett, whose teams are 0-8 against ranked opponents since beating No. 12 Syracuse two years ago. "We didn't win because two shots didn't fall."

West Virginia (4-1) couldn't steal the inbounds pass following Armstead's free throws with 1.3 seconds remaining, and Tennessee managed to slip out of Morgantown with by far the toughest of its six victories. The Vols previously had an average winning margin of 23.4 points.

"We had enough heart and guts to come back," said Tennessee's Tony Harris, who was averaging 15.8 but was held to 2 points. "We didn't match their intensity, and we had to take what their defense would give us."

For several long stretches, that wasn't very much. However, the Mountaineers' aggressive defense got them in foul trouble, and Tennessee capitalized by making 16 of 19 free throws in the second half to West Virginia's 8-of-16.

"They caused us so many problems," Catlett said. "We got crushed (49-40) on the boards and missed important free throws, and that's unusual for us."

By contrast, the Mountaineers made 13 of 15 at the line while surging to a 47-37 halftime lead. A bench that had scored only 46 points all season contributed 20 of those points but wasn't much of a factor after that.

Josh Yeager, who came off the West Virginia bench for 10 points in the first half, didn't score in the second half. John Oliver had seven points and five rebounds at halftime, but had only two points and two rebounds in the second half.

"At halftime, I told them I was surprised we weren't down more," said Green, whose team beat West Virginia 94-54 in Knoxville last season. "I didn't think we played well, but I thought if we could get close to the lead, we would make a play."

Even if the Vols had to search for someone to make it. Six Vols scored eight points or more, led by Vincent Yarbrough with 14 points, but they lacked a reliable scorer. Marcus Haislip, who scored 22 against West Virginia last season, managed only two points.

Brooks Berry led five West Virginia double-figure scorers with 16 points, 11 in the second half, and Bowman had 15. However, Lyles and Chris Moss fouled out and two more Mountaineers had four fouls as the game ended.

"They handled our pressure pretty well in the first half and got a lot of easy shots," Tennessee's Jon Higgins said. "After that, we had to dig in on defense and take better shots."

The teams exchanged the lead five times down the stretch, with West Virginia leading last at 76-74 on Bowman's two free throws.

The Vols played in Morgantown for the first time since a 93-78 loss to the Jerry West-led Mountaineers in the 1959-60 season.

ALSO SEE
Mens College Basketball Scoreboard

Tennessee Clubhouse

West Virginia Clubhouse

AUDIO/VIDEO
video
Tennessee's Charles Hathaway throws down the alley-oop from Vincent Yarbrough.
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RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1

Tim Lyles hits the jumper off the spin move in the key.
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Josh Yeager makes the tough shot on the backdoor play for the Mountaineers.
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RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1

Isiah Victor grabs the offensive board and slams it home for the Volunteers.
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RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1