West Virginia broke their four-game losing streak on Tuesday night as they beat UCF, 77-67 at the WVU Coliseum.
After the win, West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert talked about the Mountaineers’ win, including what he liked from his team on both offense and defense as well as what was different this time around from WVU’s loss to UCF in January.
Defense Does Its Job
West Virginia’s defense held UCF to 33 percent shooting, and 24 percent from three. This is despite the Knights attempting 38 three-pointers and 70 shots from the field.
“We spoke after the game in terms of executing the game plan especially when you’re switching defenses like that, sometimes it can create a lot of confusion. Our guys locked in on the game plan, we changed some things up defensively in our man and went back and forth with our defenses. Certainly, our guys took that and ran with it and executed it,” Eilert said. “Credit to our guys for taking that approach, especially after the loss in Orlando and figuring out what we can do different and executing that. It was night and day difference.”
Part of the reason for the success for the Mountaineers was how they played while in zone. WVU spent a lot of time on the defensive end in zone, and it worked out.
“We thought, they’re not the best three-point shooting team by any means and they really pounded it down low on us and I didn’t want them trying to manage Jesse. That’s been an issue in terms of keeping him out of foul trouble. I thought it was probably our best option to do so if we could get as many zone possessions as possible with him,” Eilert said of the zone. “We rebound fairly well out of it, which shouldn’t really be the case but we’re not exactly a normal team over the course of the year. We’ve shown some crazy anomalies.”
RaeQuan is Rolling
For the third straight game, RaeQuan Battle has scored at least 21 points. Battle scored 24 tonight, and over the last three games he has been way more efficient than the three-game 20 or more points streak he was on earlier in the season.
“He’s doing a lot better job letting the game come to him and just being patient with it. He’s going to get his touches one way or another so understanding what’s the best opportunity to attack. He’s naturally in attack mode, that’s the way he plays,” Eilert said. “But just the time and score and when’s a good time to go downhill and when’s not. sometimes, just giving it up and getting it back is the way to go.”
Leading With Kriisa
WVU point guard Kerr Kriisa turned in all-around solid effort against the Knights. Kriisa finished with seven points and seven assists as well as five rebounds. He also only attempted three shots from the field, and made three of them, while he only turned the ball over once.
“He was really good tonight. As a team, 15 assists, we’re plus on assist-to-turnover ratio. 15 assists, 15 or more, we’re pretty good. Seven-to-one (assist-to-turnover ratio), credit to him and he really controlled the game in several aspects that it’s nice for a first-year head coach to have a guy with that type of experience out there that can control the game. He did an excellent job,” Eilert said.
Taking Blame
Eilert took blame for the struggles for the Mountaineers down the stretch. UCF made a run late and got WVU’s lead to as few as six in the final seven minutes, while the Knights’ pressure tried to turn the Mountaineers over late as well.
“I’ll be the first to admit, I put our guys in a terrible position a couple of times. I can look back and learn from this game too. It’s good to have veterans out there. I got a little lackadaisical late in terms of taking care of the ball against their pressure and getting in the right position. Kind of let our guard down there,” Eilert said.
