MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The first half was certainly one to forget for interim head coach Josh Eilert, but in the end his team prevailed as West Virginia opened the Eilert-era with a 67-59 win over Missouri State.
“I guess that wasn’t easy was it,” Eilert said about the win.
In his first-ever game as a head coach, an ugly first half combined with a late push from Missouri State (0-1) pushed Eilert’s team to the brink in the regular season opener. In the end, West Virginia (1-0) survived both their poor first half and the late run for the Bears, to start 2023-2024 with a win.
Eilert could not have probably asked for a better start from the Mountaineers. West Virginia raced out to an early 15-4 lead with 14:07 to play.
Jesse Edwards scored seven of those points, including converting and and-one, and then drawing a charge within the first six minutes of the game.
From that point on though, West Virginia’s offense looked about as ugly as it possibly could. The Mountaineers did not score a single basket over the final 14:07 and missed their final 21 shots to end the half. Luckily for WVU, they took 18 trips to the free throw line, making 15 of them.
“It’s almost borderline hilarious. We got to look at each other and be like, man, we came into halftime, we’re going to set a world record for field goal percentage. It’s law of percentages, we’ve practiced too had, we just need to play our game,” WVU’s Quinn Slazinski said.
Missouri State trailed by 11 points entering WVU’s cold stretch but went on an 11-0 mark from the 13:03 mark until the 10:32 mark of the first half, tying the game at 15-15.
Quinn Slazinski broke the Missouri State run sinking a pair of free throws, while the Mountaineers scored their final nine points over the final 9:25 of the first half from the free throw line.
Missouri State went into the locker room with only a 30-24 lead after WVU shot 12.5 percent from the field in the first half, with Missouri State also scoring 20 of their 24 points in the paint.
“The first thing that comes to mind is tale of two halves,” Eilert said. “Nothing was easy in that first half and we had guys breaking out of our offense. And I want to use selfish, but I don’t want to use selfish, I think they mean well, but sometimes a little bit of frustration, a little ball pressure, they think they have to put their head down and drive it when in reality a lot of times a pass is the best option.”
West Virginia’s scoring woes did not last long as nine seconds into the second half Seth Wilson knocked down a three-pointer. West Virginia made their first six shots from the field to start the second half, including connecting on a pair of three-pointers as they took a 38-36 lead just over four minutes into the half.
“We got in the locker room and everything was positive,” Wilson said. “We just talked each other up, like it’s going to fall, it’s going to change and that was our mindset coming out that shots didn’t fall in the first half but they’re going to fall especially if we play the right way and get the right looks.”
Seth Wilson would force Missouri State to call their third timeout of the game and their second of the half as he hit back-to-back three-pointers, as WVU went in front 47-40 with 12:47 to play.
After that point, West Virginia seemed to figure itself out. The Mountaineers did not let Missouri State get within five points for the remainder of the game, opening their lead to as large as 11 points.
Missouri State would not go away quietly though, as they trailed by three with just over two minutes to play. West Virginia turned used two breakaway dunks from Josiah Harris in the final 17 seconds as well as a coast-to-coast layup from Slazinski to seal the win.
“I wasn’t flying high in the first half by any means. I was sitting there looking up at the ceiling a couple times thinking what did I get myself into,” Eilert said. “Like I told the guys, we couldn’t have shot it any worse in the first half. The law of averages came into play.”
After going 14:16 of elapsed game time without a made basket, the Mountaineers shot 58 percent from the field in the second half and made six of their 11 three-pointers. WVU ended the game shooting 35 percent from the field.
Slazinski led WVU with 18 points, while Edwards added 13 points and Wilson added 11. The rest of the Mountaineers combined for the other 25 points. Chance Moore scored 24 points to lead Missouri State, while Alston Mason added 15. No other Bear scored more than seven points on the night.
