Friday, December 1
Morgantown, W.Va.
7 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
St. John's
Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
West Virginia, St. John’s Meet in Big East-Big 12 Battle
November 30, 2023 12:23 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – One of our old favorites is returning to the WVU Coliseum on Friday night.
He's 71-year-old Rick Pitino, the new coach at St. John's, and this will be his sixth appearance in Morgantown as a head coach and his seventh overall.
Pitino was a backup guard on Jack Leaman's Massachusetts team that lost 63-62 to Sonny Moran's Mountaineers on Dec. 2, 1972. He played nine minutes in that game and if he could have scored one basket it would have meant the difference between victory and defeat for the Minutemen. Pitino won't be doing the scoring on Friday night, but he's got several players on his Red Storm roster capable of filling up the scorebook.
Joel Soriano, a 6-foot-11, 250-pound former Fordham transfer, is leading the Red Storm with averages of 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. He's shooting an impressive 68.4% from the floor and has grabbed a team-best 25 offensive rebounds so far this year.
His matchup against West Virginia's Jesse Edwards and Edwards' 15.8 points and 10.7 rebounds per game will be the one to keep an eye on.
"Based on what I've seen on film, I would anticipate them believing Soriano can handle Jesse one-on-one, so we might not see the double teams that we've seen in the past," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said Thursday. "They've shown a lot of digs, but they haven't really shown a hard double. It's going to be a good matchup. Those are two really good bigs, and it's going to be fun to see them battle."
Guard Daniss Jenkins, who played for Pitino at Iona, is contributing 12.8 points and a team-best 35 assists while Jordan Dingle, a 6-foot-3 Penn transfer, is averaging 11.3 points and is shooting a team-best 37.5% from 3.
St. John's is currently 4-2 with wins over Stony Brook, North Texas, Utah and Holy Cross and losses to Michigan and Dayton. The Red Storm routed Holy Cross by 46 points in their most recent game last Saturday.
Eleven of the 14 players on this year's St. John's roster have come via the transfer portal, and Pitino is using 10 or more players per game, which will be an issue for the depleted Mountaineers.
"If you look at it from his shoes, he's certainly going to try and be as physical as possible knowing he's got the bodies," Eilert said. "He's probably going to keep it as high-paced as possible, and we're going to try and do the exact opposite.
"It's going to be who imposes their will, given their circumstances," Eilert added. "I am totally anticipating him turning up the pressure on us knowing we're shorthanded and they can wear us down."
One transfer who didn't end up with Pitino was the Mountaineers' Quinn Slazinski, who spent two seasons with him at Iona. Slazinski averaged 8.4 points and 3.1 rebounds two years ago and was averaging 11.3 points through seven games last year before his season ended prematurely because of an injury.
Slazinski is looking forward to playing against his old coach and former Iona teammates Jenkins, Cruz Davis and Sadiku Ibine Ayo. Davis is getting about seven minutes per game coming off the bench while Ayo has appeared in just two contests.
"It's crazy how life comes full circle," Slazinski said after last Sunday's Bellarmine victory.
"We've had several conversations (about Friday's game)," Eilert said. "Quinn's passion is a double-edged sword. I love guys who play with passion and intensity. What I've told him is to keep that passion and intensity within your teammates. If he does that, he's going to be just fine."
Slazinski is averaging a team-best 16.3 points per game and is shooting 80% from the free throw line. WVU's other double-digit scorer is junior guard Kobe Johnson, who produced a career-high 19 points against Jacksonville State and is averaging 10.8 points per game.
Freshman guard Ofri Naveh (4.5 ppg. and 5.2 rpg.) and sophomore forward Josiah Harris (5.7 ppg. and 5.2 rpg.) round out West Virginia's starting five.
With Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa still three more games away from making his regular-season debut, and Akok Akok's medical status still uncertain, the Mountaineers continue to have just nine players available with eight seeing regular action. The three players getting minutes off the bench are guards Seth Wilson and Jeremiah Bembry and forward Patrick Suemnick.
Friday night's game will be the 39th all-time meeting between these two old Big East rivals and the second as part of the Big East-Big 12 Battle. The Red Storm won the inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle almost four years ago at Madison Square Garden 70-68 on a last-second shot.
Overall, WVU (3-3) holds a 20-18 advantage in series play.
As for Pitino, he's 8-3 overall against West Virginia but just 2-3 in games played at the WVU Coliseum - all of them coming when he coached Louisville in the Big East. His last appearance here was Feb. 11, 2012, a 77-74 Cardinal victory.
Every game Pitino has coached in the Coliseum has had at least 11,254 in attendance.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
Friday night's contest will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Chuckie Kempf and Chris Spatola). Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi begins at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday mobile apps.
SiriusXM coverage is also available on channels 109 and 199.
He's 71-year-old Rick Pitino, the new coach at St. John's, and this will be his sixth appearance in Morgantown as a head coach and his seventh overall.
Pitino was a backup guard on Jack Leaman's Massachusetts team that lost 63-62 to Sonny Moran's Mountaineers on Dec. 2, 1972. He played nine minutes in that game and if he could have scored one basket it would have meant the difference between victory and defeat for the Minutemen. Pitino won't be doing the scoring on Friday night, but he's got several players on his Red Storm roster capable of filling up the scorebook.
Joel Soriano, a 6-foot-11, 250-pound former Fordham transfer, is leading the Red Storm with averages of 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. He's shooting an impressive 68.4% from the floor and has grabbed a team-best 25 offensive rebounds so far this year.
His matchup against West Virginia's Jesse Edwards and Edwards' 15.8 points and 10.7 rebounds per game will be the one to keep an eye on.
"Based on what I've seen on film, I would anticipate them believing Soriano can handle Jesse one-on-one, so we might not see the double teams that we've seen in the past," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said Thursday. "They've shown a lot of digs, but they haven't really shown a hard double. It's going to be a good matchup. Those are two really good bigs, and it's going to be fun to see them battle."
Guard Daniss Jenkins, who played for Pitino at Iona, is contributing 12.8 points and a team-best 35 assists while Jordan Dingle, a 6-foot-3 Penn transfer, is averaging 11.3 points and is shooting a team-best 37.5% from 3.
St. John's is currently 4-2 with wins over Stony Brook, North Texas, Utah and Holy Cross and losses to Michigan and Dayton. The Red Storm routed Holy Cross by 46 points in their most recent game last Saturday.
Eleven of the 14 players on this year's St. John's roster have come via the transfer portal, and Pitino is using 10 or more players per game, which will be an issue for the depleted Mountaineers.
"If you look at it from his shoes, he's certainly going to try and be as physical as possible knowing he's got the bodies," Eilert said. "He's probably going to keep it as high-paced as possible, and we're going to try and do the exact opposite.
"It's going to be who imposes their will, given their circumstances," Eilert added. "I am totally anticipating him turning up the pressure on us knowing we're shorthanded and they can wear us down."
One transfer who didn't end up with Pitino was the Mountaineers' Quinn Slazinski, who spent two seasons with him at Iona. Slazinski averaged 8.4 points and 3.1 rebounds two years ago and was averaging 11.3 points through seven games last year before his season ended prematurely because of an injury.
Slazinski is looking forward to playing against his old coach and former Iona teammates Jenkins, Cruz Davis and Sadiku Ibine Ayo. Davis is getting about seven minutes per game coming off the bench while Ayo has appeared in just two contests.
"It's crazy how life comes full circle," Slazinski said after last Sunday's Bellarmine victory.
"We've had several conversations (about Friday's game)," Eilert said. "Quinn's passion is a double-edged sword. I love guys who play with passion and intensity. What I've told him is to keep that passion and intensity within your teammates. If he does that, he's going to be just fine."
Slazinski is averaging a team-best 16.3 points per game and is shooting 80% from the free throw line. WVU's other double-digit scorer is junior guard Kobe Johnson, who produced a career-high 19 points against Jacksonville State and is averaging 10.8 points per game.
Freshman guard Ofri Naveh (4.5 ppg. and 5.2 rpg.) and sophomore forward Josiah Harris (5.7 ppg. and 5.2 rpg.) round out West Virginia's starting five.
With Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa still three more games away from making his regular-season debut, and Akok Akok's medical status still uncertain, the Mountaineers continue to have just nine players available with eight seeing regular action. The three players getting minutes off the bench are guards Seth Wilson and Jeremiah Bembry and forward Patrick Suemnick.
Friday night's game will be the 39th all-time meeting between these two old Big East rivals and the second as part of the Big East-Big 12 Battle. The Red Storm won the inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle almost four years ago at Madison Square Garden 70-68 on a last-second shot.
Overall, WVU (3-3) holds a 20-18 advantage in series play.
As for Pitino, he's 8-3 overall against West Virginia but just 2-3 in games played at the WVU Coliseum - all of them coming when he coached Louisville in the Big East. His last appearance here was Feb. 11, 2012, a 77-74 Cardinal victory.
Every game Pitino has coached in the Coliseum has had at least 11,254 in attendance.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
Friday night's contest will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Chuckie Kempf and Chris Spatola). Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi begins at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday mobile apps.
SiriusXM coverage is also available on channels 109 and 199.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's BasketballTV Highlights: WVU 81, Lafayette 59
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