Joe Toussaint was a roster casualty of the crazy summer for West Virginia men’s basketball.
Toussaint spent one season with the Mountaineers but was primed to come back. Instead, he hit the transfer portal and went to Texas Tech. Things came full circle for Toussaint on Saturday night as he returned to the WVU Coliseum and was one of the main reasons the Red Raiders came out with a win.
Toussaint had 21 points, seven assists, going 9-for-17 from the field.
“You got to really watch that. I wasn’t really thinking about it like that, I thought it was just another game on the east coast. I was just happy my family came to see me. As you guys know, New York is like five and a half [hours away]. I was happy that my dad, my brothers came to support me here. It’s all respect to the coaches on that side, the guys. I respect them 100 percent. I talk to them, so I’m happy for them and I’m happy for what they’re doing. I respect it,” Toussaint said. “It was weird, a lot of things was going on. Me and my family didn’t know what was going on honestly. We just thought our best bet was to hit the transfer portal, see what we could get. Thank god to Grant and his coaching staff, they reached out to me first. I ended up going to (Texas) Tech, and thank god everything is working out for me.”
Toussaint, a senior from the Bronx is averaging 12.6 points per game this season, shooting just under 42% from the field. At West Virginia, last season Toussaint averaged 9.4 ppg as a role player, starting just one game after spending three seasons at Iowa previously.
“I have always respected Joe, a great kid from a great family. I wish he was still here playing for the old gold and blue,” WVU interim head coach Josh Eilert said. “It can go a lot of different ways, especially the emotions of going back here and we know his game and tried to do everything we could to keep him out of the paint. We mixed and matched our ball screen coverage with different guys, which we haven’t done a lot this year, so it affects the back side of the defense in terms of your help side when you do that. That middle ball, flat ball screen was giving us problems all night long.”
In 36 minutes on Saturday, Toussaint shot two of six from three, also picking up three steals and two rebounds. He shot four of seven from the field in the second half (57%) to help the Red Raiders take control of the game and come away with a 81-70 victory.
