West Virginia men’s basketball is still trying to figure themselves out.
Facing a lot of depth issues with multiple players out, as well as having a first-time head coach in just his second collegiate game, the growing pains for the Mountaineers might have been expected.
But on Friday against Monmouth, those pains were exposed both on offense and defense, as the Mountaineers fell to Monmouth, 73-65.
“We’re going through some challenges here,” West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert said. “Trying to figure out how to win with all these challenges. Certainly, this team has faced a lot of adversity and challenges thus far and this is one we’re going to try to dissect and figure out and move on and try to learn from this and that’s all you can do from a loss.”
In West Virginia’s season opener on Monday, the Mountaineers turned the ball over seven times. In the opening eight minutes of Friday’s contest, Monmouth had forced that same number of turnovers, turning them into 11 early points as they led 17-12.
The first half shooting struggles continued for West Virginia, as they needed an 8-0 run to take the lead 20-17 but had four of those points come from the free throw line. Monmouth answered right back, as Xander Rice scored six of his 10 first-half points as the Hawks went on their own 8-0 run and took a 27-22 lead with 4:55 to play.
“On our court, we can’t have another team come in and set the tone,” Slazinski said.
Both teams traded buckets to end the first half, and Jesse Edwards got an offensive rebound and a putback fadeaway to give West Virginia a 33-32 lead heading into halftime.
West Virginia shot 40 percent from the field in the first half, knocking down three of their 13 three-point attempts. In the second half, Monmouth would consistently switch up their schematics on defense, causing problems for the Mountaineers.
West Virginia shot 24 percent from the field in the second half, and missed 15 three-pointers. The Mountaineers were also 7-for-21 on layups in the second half.
Edwards finished with 10 points in the first half but would not be turned to as often in the second half. To start the second, West Virginia started out slow, and the Hawks made them pay for it.
Rice and Jakari Spence hit two early three-pointers, as the Hawks went on runs of 6-0, 4-0 and 5-0, all within the first 6:03 of the second half as they had a 49-40 lead.
“They came in with an extreme amount of confidence and they continue to chip and chip and chip, to the point where we finally broke,” Eilert said.
They would not surrender that lead behind the hot shooting of Rice and the untimely turnovers by the Mountaineers.
West Virginia was on a 7-0 run as a three-pointer from Quinn Slazinski cut the Mounmouth lead to two with 11:29 to play. West Virginia got the stop they need on defense, before Kobe Johnson fell down, turning it over and Jakari Spence found Rice for a three-pointer and the Hawks’ lead increased to five.
West Virginia would not cut the deficit under three points for the rest of the game, while Rice hit four of his six three-pointers in the second half, scoring a career-high 30 points.
West Virginia beat Monmouth in the turnover battle, but the Hawks made them count, scoring 18 total points off of turnovers compared to WVU’s nine. The Hawks also had 26 fast break points and went 6 for 12 from three-point range.
West Virginia missed seven free throws, going 16-for-23 from the charity stripe, while the Hawks had nine offensive rebounds and led for more than 26 minutes.
West Virginia’s depth was figured out by the Hawks, as the Mountaineers got only four points off their bench, with the five starters combining for 61 points. Edwards led the way with 16, while Quinn Slazinski added 15 points. Kobe Johnson had a career-high 13 points in the loss.
The loss for West Virginia is only their second loss to a non-power five team in the month of November since 2011 (Nov. 9, 2018, vs Buffalo), and WVU entered Friday 132-9 at home against non-conference opponents and had won 113 of their last 120 over the last 22 years.
