Friday, November 10
Morgantown, W.Va.
7 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Monmouth
Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
Mountaineers Continue Three-Game Homestand on Friday Night
November 09, 2023 03:20 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia continues its three-game, eight-day homestand on Friday night against Monmouth of the Colonial Athletic Association.
Coached by former North Carolina standout King Rice, the Hawks (0-1) are coming off a season-opening, 72-61 loss to George Mason, the same George Mason team West Virginia defeated 85-78 in a charity exhibition game played at the Coliseum on Friday, Oct. 27.
"It's certainly going to be another challenge, especially with a short-handed roster," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "Monmouth is a good team. We've seen King Rice a couple of times during his tenure at Monmouth. We saw them in 2018, and we saw them in 2014 in our opener. They've got a scrappy bunch. They want to get up in you and take things away and really try and create havoc with turnovers."
Monmouth got a game-high 21 points from 6-foot-3 guard Xander Rice in Monday's loss. Xander, a Bucknell transfer, is King's son. Jack Collins, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, earned CAA All-Rookie Team honors last year and chipped in with 17 on Monday night.
Monmouth won 21 games two years ago before slipping to just seven victories last year against a difficult nonconference schedule, which is what Rice typically does before his teams begin league play.
"They've got a couple of guys in Xander Rice and Jack Collins who are putting up a lot of shots and can score so we've got another challenge on our hands. We're trying everything we can do to help our legs," Eilert said. "A lot of guys played a lot of minutes who typically don't play a lot of minutes, so we've been really mindful of that playing three games in eight days."
West Virginia (1-0) got Eilert his first coaching victory in come-from behind fashion against Missouri State on Monday night. The Mountaineers missed 21 straight field goal attempts and shot a paltry 14% in the first half to trail the Bears by six at the break.
However, in the second half, it took WVU just three minutes to erase its deficit, and eventually it built an eight-point lead before Missouri State rallied to cut it to two with 41 seconds left. West Virginia handled the Bears' full-court pressure to score the game's final six points in its 67-59 victory.
Iona transfer Quinn Slazinski scored a team-high 18 points while Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards contributed 13 points and 13 rebounds, despite being double- and triple-teamed. Eilert anticipates teams continuing to gang up on his talented 6-foot-11 senior center.
"I had my suspicions that they were going to sag back on Jesse and double team him, and I think that's going to happen all year," Eilert said. "I didn't know that they were just going to invite some of our guards to shoot them out of their defense, so we've got to be more prepared for that.
The more touches we can get (Jesse) the better off everybody is going to be," he explained. "Jesse is going to make good decisions with the ball because when he's doubled, he's going to pass out of it, and if we make the right cuts and rotations and fill-behinds, we're going to get great shots."
Eilert predicts it's going to be hard for teams to consistently double-team Edwards because he's such a good passer.
"We've got to get the correct spacing in terms of taking advantage of step-in shots because we will get step-in shots if we're patient in the double teams and we make the right reads," Eilert said. "Teams are usually good after one rotation, but the second and third rotations in college basketball become really hard."
Eilert used eight of his nine available players against Missouri State on Monday night and will once again have a limited bench with Akok Akok still recovering from the medical emergency he suffered in the exhibition game and RaeQuan Battle awaiting word on his transfer waiver appeal.
As of Thursday morning, Eilert said there are no new updates on either player.
"I keep crossing my fingers and thinking positive thoughts," he said. "Things are trending in a positive direction with Akok, if I can speak from the general side of things, which is great for him and his health."
Battle's initial waiver request was denied on Monday, Oct. 23, meaning he's now been in limbo for more than two weeks.
Consequently, Eilert said he is going to have to continue monitoring his team's workload during practice and also try and steal minutes for some of his players by either substituting right before media timeouts or playing some zone defense, which he did against Missouri State.
"We had to try and maintain fresh legs, and we also did it to change the game," he said. "Sometimes when you are chasing guys defensively, you don't have the legs you need for offensive production. I might have gotten a little too creative late in the game where I thought we were all on the same page, but I found out differently."
Eilert didn't have much to go on in preparation for Missouri State, but Monmouth will be a different story.
"When you are watching guys' size and athleticism, you have something to compare it to and that makes it a lot easier to make those judgements," Eilert said.
Friday night's game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN+ (Nick Farrell, Warren Baker and Amanda Mazey). Radio coverage on the Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield begins at 6 p.m.
WVU has won both meetings against Monmouth, 64-54, at the Coliseum in 2014 and 71-53 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 2018.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
Coached by former North Carolina standout King Rice, the Hawks (0-1) are coming off a season-opening, 72-61 loss to George Mason, the same George Mason team West Virginia defeated 85-78 in a charity exhibition game played at the Coliseum on Friday, Oct. 27.
"It's certainly going to be another challenge, especially with a short-handed roster," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "Monmouth is a good team. We've seen King Rice a couple of times during his tenure at Monmouth. We saw them in 2018, and we saw them in 2014 in our opener. They've got a scrappy bunch. They want to get up in you and take things away and really try and create havoc with turnovers."
Monmouth got a game-high 21 points from 6-foot-3 guard Xander Rice in Monday's loss. Xander, a Bucknell transfer, is King's son. Jack Collins, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, earned CAA All-Rookie Team honors last year and chipped in with 17 on Monday night.
Monmouth won 21 games two years ago before slipping to just seven victories last year against a difficult nonconference schedule, which is what Rice typically does before his teams begin league play.
"They've got a couple of guys in Xander Rice and Jack Collins who are putting up a lot of shots and can score so we've got another challenge on our hands. We're trying everything we can do to help our legs," Eilert said. "A lot of guys played a lot of minutes who typically don't play a lot of minutes, so we've been really mindful of that playing three games in eight days."
West Virginia (1-0) got Eilert his first coaching victory in come-from behind fashion against Missouri State on Monday night. The Mountaineers missed 21 straight field goal attempts and shot a paltry 14% in the first half to trail the Bears by six at the break.
However, in the second half, it took WVU just three minutes to erase its deficit, and eventually it built an eight-point lead before Missouri State rallied to cut it to two with 41 seconds left. West Virginia handled the Bears' full-court pressure to score the game's final six points in its 67-59 victory.
Iona transfer Quinn Slazinski scored a team-high 18 points while Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards contributed 13 points and 13 rebounds, despite being double- and triple-teamed. Eilert anticipates teams continuing to gang up on his talented 6-foot-11 senior center.
"I had my suspicions that they were going to sag back on Jesse and double team him, and I think that's going to happen all year," Eilert said. "I didn't know that they were just going to invite some of our guards to shoot them out of their defense, so we've got to be more prepared for that.
The more touches we can get (Jesse) the better off everybody is going to be," he explained. "Jesse is going to make good decisions with the ball because when he's doubled, he's going to pass out of it, and if we make the right cuts and rotations and fill-behinds, we're going to get great shots."
Eilert predicts it's going to be hard for teams to consistently double-team Edwards because he's such a good passer.
"We've got to get the correct spacing in terms of taking advantage of step-in shots because we will get step-in shots if we're patient in the double teams and we make the right reads," Eilert said. "Teams are usually good after one rotation, but the second and third rotations in college basketball become really hard."
Eilert used eight of his nine available players against Missouri State on Monday night and will once again have a limited bench with Akok Akok still recovering from the medical emergency he suffered in the exhibition game and RaeQuan Battle awaiting word on his transfer waiver appeal.
As of Thursday morning, Eilert said there are no new updates on either player.
"I keep crossing my fingers and thinking positive thoughts," he said. "Things are trending in a positive direction with Akok, if I can speak from the general side of things, which is great for him and his health."
Battle's initial waiver request was denied on Monday, Oct. 23, meaning he's now been in limbo for more than two weeks.
Consequently, Eilert said he is going to have to continue monitoring his team's workload during practice and also try and steal minutes for some of his players by either substituting right before media timeouts or playing some zone defense, which he did against Missouri State.
"We had to try and maintain fresh legs, and we also did it to change the game," he said. "Sometimes when you are chasing guys defensively, you don't have the legs you need for offensive production. I might have gotten a little too creative late in the game where I thought we were all on the same page, but I found out differently."
Eilert didn't have much to go on in preparation for Missouri State, but Monmouth will be a different story.
"When you are watching guys' size and athleticism, you have something to compare it to and that makes it a lot easier to make those judgements," Eilert said.
Friday night's game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN+ (Nick Farrell, Warren Baker and Amanda Mazey). Radio coverage on the Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield begins at 6 p.m.
WVU has won both meetings against Monmouth, 64-54, at the Coliseum in 2014 and 71-53 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 2018.
Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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