The West Virginia men’s basketball team plays host to St. Johns on Friday in this year’s edition of the Big East-Big 12 Battle. Both teams are entering the game coming off a win, with West Virginia coming at 3-3 while St. Johns comes in at 4-2.
The last time these two teams faced off was in the 2019 edition of the Big East-Big 12 Battle that saw St. Johns come out on top. For West Virginia, not only is this a matchup with an old rival in St. Johns, but also a matchup against former Louisville head coach and now current St. Johns head coach, Rick Pitino, who will return to the Coliseum for the first time since 2012.
“He’s a hall of fame coach and has done incredible things throughout his career,” said West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert. “I’ve watched and followed him as my career has advanced, so many things he does on the basketball court, is very admirable, and it’s been fun to see how successful his programs have become at every different school he’s been at.”
The matchup everyone will be looking at will be the Mountaineers Jesse Edwards and the Red Storm’s Joel Soriano. Soriano, a 6-foot-11, 250 pound transfer from Fordham, is leading the Red Storm in scoring and rebounding with 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game.
“Based on what I’ve seen on film, I would anticipate them believing Soriano can handle Jesse one-on-one, so we might not see the double teams that we’ve seen in the past, they haven’t shown a lot of doubles,” said Eilert. “They’ve shown a lot of digs in the post with a really good big man that they face, they’ll try to dig it out as best they can but they haven’t really shown a hard double, so they probably believe going into it that he can hold his own down there with Jesse. It’s going to be a good matchup. Those are two really good bigs and it’s going to be fun to see them battle.”
Scoring wise for the Mountaineers, Quinn Slazinski has been leading the charge averaging 16.3 points per game while shooting 42.3% from the field while St. Johns is led by the previously mentioned Joel Soriano.
Tip-off is set for 7:00 at the Coliseum in Morgantown. The game can be seen on ESPN2.
