MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia returns to the Coliseum to face 1-3 Iona on Wednesday night. It will be the Gaels first visit to Morgantown and the first-ever meeting between the two schools on the hardwood.
 
The New Rochelle, New York, school competes in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, where they finished seventh before bowing out of last year's conference tournament in the quarterfinals.
 
It was coach Tobin Anderson's first season there after leading Fairleigh Dickinson to one of the biggest upset victories in NCAA Tournament history when his Knights defeated No. 1-seeded Purdue in the first round in 2023.
 
Last season, Iona was 16-17 overall, which prompted Anderson to completely overhaul his roster.
 
"This is a team that presses the whole game, and they give you just a different set of problems that we need to do a good job of handling," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said. "We haven't played a team that's pressed us like we're going to get pressed for 40 minutes, so it will be another learning opportunity of seeing where we are at from a press breaker standpoint."
 
Dejour Reaves, a 6-foot guard, was brought in from Northern Colorado, where he was the Big Sky Sixth Man of the Year and a second team all-conference performer. Reaves is averaging a team-best 15.5 points per game, although he is shooting just 36.2% from the floor through the first four games of the season.
 
Southern Illinois transfer Clarence Rupert, who played on Saint Peter's Elite Eight team that upset Purdue in the 2022 NCAA Tournament, is the other Gael averaging double figures at 10.5 points per outing.
 
The 6-foot-8 forward ranks second on the team with an average of 6.5 rebounds per game.
 
Yaphet Moundi, also 6-foot-8, is averaging a team-best 6.8 rebounds to go with an 8.0 points-per-game scoring average.
 
The rest of Iona's expected starting lineup consists of 6-foot-7 James Patterson, averaging 9.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, and 6-foot-3 Adam Njie Jr., averaging 9.3 points while handing out a team-best 14 assists.
 
Kernan Bundy, UCF transfer Comeh Emuobor and Nebraska-Omaha transfer Luke Jungers are Iona's top three coming off the bench.
 
"They've been very competitive in all of their games," DeVries said. "It's a new roster, but they're playing really hard, and they just keep coming. They've been down fairly big in a couple of games and came all the way back. They just stay with it, and if you let up, they will hit you with a 6-0 run really quick. You can't ever get comfortable because they don't let you get comfortable."
 
The Gaels opened the season with an 81-80 loss at Princeton and dropped decisions at Hofstra (90-76) and at home against Delaware (64-58) before edging Vermont 62-59 last Friday - the same night West Virginia lost 86-62 at Pitt in the 191^st Backyard Brawl.
 
Guard Javon Small was the only Mountaineer starter to reach double figures against the Panthers with 12 points.
 
Freshman guard Jonathan Powell came off the bench to contribute a team-best 16 points on 6 of 12 shooting, including 4 of 10 from 3-point range.
 
"He had a tough shooting first half, and he came out in the second half, and he kept shooting, and that's what he should do," DeVries said of Powell. "You have to keep shooting and percentages say that it's going to balance out, and he ended up 4 for 10 from 3, so that's a nice, solid night. He feels like he should have made 7 or 8 out of 10 with those kinds of looks, but overall, I just like his mindset." 
 
As a team, West Virginia (2-1) connected on just 6 of its 29 field goal attempts from behind the arc and shot 38.7% overall for the game.
 
"We didn't run very good offense," DeVries said Tuesday afternoon of last Friday night's loss. "We didn't get very good shot selection from pretty much about everyone, and a lot of that was our movement and activity all around. Defensively, even though they were scoring early, we were actually doing some pretty good things. We were getting the types of shots we wanted them to take. Now, as the game went on, that went away a little bit."
 
Pitt had a 45 to 32 advantage on the glass.
 
"We're a good team when we're hooked up and connected and playing together on both ends of the floor, but our margin for error is pretty thin, like a lot of teams," DeVries pointed out.
 
ESPN+ will televise the West Virginia-Iona contest.
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and David Kahn begins at 6 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
 
Wednesday night's game will be the last time fans can watch the Mountaineers in Morgantown until Friday, Dec. 6, when West Virginia plays Georgetown in Big 12-Big East Battle.
 
WVU will face third-ranked Gonzaga on Wednesday, Nov. 27, in the Bahamas as part of the Battle 4 Atlantis Thanksgiving tournament. 
 
The Mountaineers will play either 16^th-ranked Indiana or Louisville the following day before concluding their Bahamas stay on Friday with a game against either 17^th-ranked Arizona, Davidson, Oklahoma or Providence. 
 
All Battle 4 Atlantis games will be televised on either ESPN or ESPN2.