Since becoming eligible, West Virginia guard RaeQuan Battle has averaged 27.3 points and 6.3 rebounds a game, earning back-to-back Big 12 Player of the Week awards.
Thursday, WVU men’s basketball interim head coach Josh Eilert touched on the importance of Battle’s presence on the court and his mindset off it.
“He’s a very coachable young man, he’s a great person, a great teammate. He wants to do everything he can for us to win,” Eilert said of Battle. “He’d be very happy if he scored five points and we got a win, that’s the type of person he is, the type of teammate he is.”
Since, Battle’s first game, the Mountaineers are 1-2, falling to Radford and Ohio State, beating Toledo.
“He’s open to figure out what it is we need of him, we’ve had conversations with him,” Eilert said.
Being technical, Eilert outlined what Battle could do better and how WVU may utilize him in the future.
“He’s very athletic, he can recover well on the defensive end, but sometimes he can jump out of position just because he’s taking chances and bouncing side to side. So, he can certainly do more for us defensively, create more havoc and he’s very good with anticipation in terms of running through passing lanes,” Eilert said.
“We can also use him more as a decoy from time to time because teams are going to key on him, they’re going to key heavily on him. So, he should be drawing their (opposing teams’) best defender each and every night which is going to open other guys up.”
Overall, Eilert believes Battle will be beneficial to West Virginia’s success.
“RaeQuan’s going to do whatever RaeQuan can do to help us win. That’s the type of kid he is and he’s a coachable young man and I’m excited to continue to work with him,” Eilert said.
