West Virginia men’s basketball has their final exhibition on Friday night against George Mason. For interim head coach Josh Eilert, he’s looking for his team to improve from where they were in their first scrimmage against Vanderbilt.
“An issue was our defensive rebounding. We’ve drilled that and drilled that and hopefully got through to them that before we run out, we got to check our man,” Eilert said. “It’s a give or take especially when you’re trying to score early and get out in transition and get those opportunities. But we’ve certainly got to do the job on the defensive rebounding side of things before we run out and not put all that pressure on one or two guys.”
While the negative from their first scrimmage was on the boards, there were a lot of positives to draw from for Eilert too.
“We learned a lot about our team. It was a very, very, competitive game. There was 23 lead changes, it went into overtime, we were down two, had a shot to win it,” Eilert said.
That opportunity against the Commodores was the first spot for Eilert to be considered the head coach of the Mountaineers, and be the one roaming the sidelines.
“I played it true,” Eilert said. “I wanted to play it true and I was going to figure out my rotations, and who I can rely on and those sort of things.”
Another learning curve for Eilert and his young staff is assigning the scout for opponents, and drawing from that as the season moves on. Eilert said they had a traditional scout and preparation for both Vanderbilt and George Mason.
“It is an exhibition game, and we’re trying to win the game, but I’m still trying to figure out what we need to improve on,” Eilert said. “We did the same thing for Vanderbilt and treated it just like we’d treat any program we play in the regular season.”
For Eilert, he feels WVU’s offense is close to being there, but on defense they have to continue to learn and play better.
“Offensively I feel like our identity is coming. Defensively, we’ve got a long ways to go,” Eilert said.
The Mountaineers face off against George Mason on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. from the WVU Coliseum. The game will be televised on ESPN+.
