WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The No. 3-ranked West Liberty University men's basketball team put on a shooting clinic in the first half en route to a 99-69 blowout of West Virginia Wesleyan in an NCAA Division II Atlantic Region semifinal Sunday night at the ASRC.

Coach Jim Crutchfield's top-seeded and defending regional champion Hilltoppers (31-2) will take on No. 7-ranked Shaw, N.C. (27-3) in Tuesday's regional championship game. The Bears breezed to a 92-68 victory against Wheeling Jesuit in Sunday's other semifinal.

Tipoff for Tuesday's regional final is set for 7 p.m. at the ASRC.

Sunday's semifinal against Wesleyan was the fourth time this season that the two teams had met on the hardwood and Alex Falk wasted little time making sure that this one entered the Hilltoppers' win column alongside the first three.

West Liberty's All-Region guard led his teammates in a dazzling display of offensive basketball that saw the Hilltoppers shoot a blistering 73 percent (24-of-33) from the floor in the first half – including 64 percent (9-of-14) from behind the 3-point arc.

Falk accounted for a considerable portion of those numbers, draining 10-of-11 shots from the floor and hitting 4-of-5 3-point attempts to put 26 points on the board in the first 20 minutes.

“It was a great feeling,” Falk said. “It literally felt like anything I threw up there was going to go in. I thought we really ran our motion offense very well in the first half. It spread them out and really opened up the floor.”

It also helped the Hilltoppers open up what proved to be an insurmountable lead as the Black and Gold jogged into the locker room with a 61-40 advantage at halftime against the No. 1-ranked defense in the West Virginia Conference.

The shooting pace cooled a bit in the second half but the Bobcats never came close to mounting a run. The lead stretched over 30 points on multiple occasions and the West Liberty reserves got some extended playing time down the stretch for the second consecutive night.

Falk finished with a game-high 29 points to lead the Hilltoppers while freshman C.J. Hester notched a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Tim Hausfeld and Shawn Dyer added 14 and 11 points, respectively.

All-Region guard Raymont McElroy paced the Bobcats with 22 points.

West Liberty, which has already clinched its sixth NCAA Division II scoring title in the last seven years, has averaged 108.5 ppg. and outscored its first two regional foes by an average of 33 points heading into Tuesday's regional final.

“We haven't changed anything,” Crutchfield said. “We're just playing very good basketball right now plus we're shooting the ball extremely well. We'll need to do both those things again Tuesday night against a very talented team from Shaw.” 

GAME NOTES

X West Liberty is trying to become the first West Virginia Conference team to win back-to-back regional titles since the WVIAC switched from NAIA to NCAA affiliation in the mid-1990s

X The winner of Tuesday's Atlantic Region final advances to the 2012 NCAA Division II Elite Eight, which is scheduled for March 21-24 in Highland Heights, Ky.

X The Atlantic Region final matches up two of the hottest teams in the nation. West Liberty has won 29 of its last 30 games while Shaw has won 23 of its last 24

X The Hilltoppers have won 73 of their last 75 games at the ASRC and are 33-3 (.917) at home against non-conference opponents during the Crutchfield Era

X West Liberty is now 8-3 in NCAA tournament play while Shaw has an 8-4 mark

X The Hilltoppers are making their fourth NCAA tournament appearance while the Bears are in post-season play for the fifth time