Cincinnati defeated West Virginia 92-56 on Saturday to cap off the regular season, WVU interim head coach Josh Eilert spoke on the team’s struggles and mindset going forward after the sizeable loss.
Cincinnati dominated the paint against the Mountaineers, out-rebounding them 37 to 23 and out-scoring them in the paint 48 to 14.
West Virginia center Jesse Edwards was neutralized as a threat to the Bearcats, coming off a 36-point performance against TCU on senior night and scoring 25 points, with 10 rebounds and four blocks in WVU’s win over Cincinnati in January.
“We’ve been working on Jesse (Edwards) with his balance all year long and when he plays with that tenacity, that toughness and takes things personal he’s a different player. But we’ve also seen where bodies have been thrown at him and they’re really physical with him and that affects him. So, that certainly did tonight,” Eilert said.
Edwards finished with eight points, four rebounds, a block and a steal, shooting four of seven from the field.
West Virginia only trailed by seven at halftime, but struggled mightily in the second half allowing Cincinnati to build momentum and take control of the game.
“I don’t what stat they didn’t dominate us in. Seemed like they certainly wanted it way more than we did. I thought for the most part, first half we played a pretty good half. There’s few mistakes we made and could’ve been right there with them at halftime, but I felt good going into halftime,” Eilert said. “It’s hard when you try to change your defense and they do so well to attack it. I ran out of timeouts trying to stop the bleeding, but couldn’t get the bleeding stopped.”
WVU ended the regular season unable to secure a victory on the road and has struggled to win games on the road in conference play the last couple of seasons, to which Eilert believes it’s about mindset.
“I’m not going to pinpoint anything, I think it (West Virginia’s road struggles) is more of a mentality than anything. Typically defense travels and that’s been our biggest issue and it was certainly an issue tonight,” Eilert said.
With the Mountaineers losing five straight heading into the Big 12 tournament, Eilert spoke further on the team’s mentality.
“This team has been very inconsistent with their mindset, sometimes I don’t think they’re ready to play and come out scorching hot and sometimes vice versa. I’ve been fighting for consistency each and every night throughout the course of the season, but haven’t got there yet. We got new life, we’re going to Kansas City (for the Big 12 tournament) and everybody’s got a chance. And at the end of the day, we got to flush this and understand how we got here,” Eilert said.
West Virginia is currently set to play Cincinnati in the first round of the Big 12 tournament and will look to vastly improve on Saturday’s performance.
“Credit to them (Cincinnati), credit to Wes (Miller) and his program in how they approach the game and looks like we’ll be seeing them soon,” Eilert said.
