After West Virginia’s comeback win against Cincinnati on Wednesday, there was a lot to like for interim head coach Josh Eilert.
Between Jesse Edwards getting back to what seems to be his old self, as well as the Mountaineers closing out their comeback down the stretch, Eilert was pleased with a lot from his team.
Edwards’ Explosion
Edwards scored 25 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and had four blocks, the first time anyone in Mountaineer history has accomplished that feat. In addition to that, he also scored his 1,000th career point.
You could see it. His confidence was telling on me early because the free throws weren’t falling for him early, and that’s going to be a frustration with him getting completely healed. I tried to instill some confidence in him. We’re not playing any different.
We’re going to play aggressive and play to win. If you end up at the line, we’ll live,” Eilert said of Edwards.
“So, he had all the confidence in the world and from there on out, 25 and 10. It’s a difference maker having Jesse on the floor. I can’t imagine with a rebounding team like that, not having Jesse. With the way he can rim run and the threat of a rim run early is going to open up everybody on the floor and should go to play inside out. Kind of the way I envisioned playing from the beginning.”
Comeback Complete
West Virginia trailed 60-50 with less than seven minutes to play. The Mountaineers did something they had not done all season long — overcome a double digit deficit.
“Down the stretch we were down 10, I think it was the first time all year that we’ve had a double-digit deficit and had enough resolve, enough resilience, and enough poise to make that comeback and get a victory,” Eilert said. “Credit to our guys for staying in it and staying positive and grinding one possession out at a time to get us the victory. It looks like we had a 12-0 run from the 6:29-mark to the 1:47-mark. So, those are critical stops that we had to get, and we had to get production on the other end, and we found a way to grind each possession out to find a way to get a win.”
Clutch RaeQuan Revival
The past week for RaeQuan Battle has not been easy. The fifth-year guard has been struggling to score, and was even ejected in a loss to UCF last week.
Tonight, he stepped up with 1:04 to play and answered a Cincinnati three-pointer with a three of his own. That put the Mountaineers in front 65-63 and they never looked back from there. Battle finished with 10 points, but was plus-20 on the night.
“Huge shot and credit to RaeQuan. He’s had his struggles the last couple of games, and he’s been frustrated. We’ve had a lot of conversations. He only took six field goals outside the couple three-point shots he got fouled on and went to the line,” Eilert said.
“All that being said, he had 10 (points) and two (rebounds), and the glaring stat on the box score is that he was plus 20 when he was out there. That’s a glaring stat to me that he was playing winning basketball for us tonight for sure.”
