The cards are certainly not going in West Virginia’s favor. Interim head coach Josh Eilert acknowledged the multiple challenges facing the Mountaineers after they lost 73-65 to Monmouth on Friday.
Accepting Blame
Eilert took the time to have a what he called a “heart-to-heart” with the West Virginia team in the locker room. The Mountaineers could never recover after a slow start to the second half, and they didn’t do the little things right in the loss.
“I’m disappointed and they’re disappointed. I told them in the locker room we had a heart-to-heart, and everyone spoke their piece. That’s healthy. That’s health conversations we’re having, and we have to figure out how to get on the same page,” Eilert said.
“There’s going to be a lot of voices, there’s going to be a lot of critics and those people can voice their opinion and try to break us, but we got to stay together and figure out how we get better as a coaching staff, get better as a program, be better teammates and all the way down the line. We’re going to keep working, it’s a long season. We dropped one and now we have to figure out how to learn from it and move on.”
Getting Jesse (and the offense) Going
In the second half, Jesse Edwards was not the same force he was in the first half. Monmouth would switch up their defensive schemes, and six points and five rebounds in the second half after he had 10 points and eight rebounds in the first half.
“They knew in half court man-to-man, we were going to try to get him (Edwards) as many touches as possible and then they saw the weakness in that part of the strategy. So they went zone early and often. I don’t think we necessarily got bad shots but we didn’t knock them down.”
West Virginia ended up shooting 31 percent from the field on the night, going 24 percent from the field in the second half.
“I keep telling the guys each and every day we have to figure out how to play off each other. In basketball, nothing is every perfect in terms of the way you draw it,” Eilert said.
“Trying to figure out how we get that cohesive synergy so to speak is something we’ve struggled with at times and where we’re going to have to figure it out sooner than later. Because I guarantee we’re going to see a lot more 2-3 zone.”
Dealing With Depth
West Virginia only had four points come off the bench, and four of their five starters played at least 33 minutes.
“We knew coming into it, their bread and butter is turning people over and getting out in the open floor and they did exactly that. They knew our rotational situation and they took advantage of it, that’s smart coaching. They got downhill, they put pressure on us, they moved us.”
