Eilert gets right mix of effort, intensity from WVU in second half
West Virginia head coach Josh Eilert didn’t hold back on his team at halftime.
Trailing 48-26 on the road, the Mountaineers appeared destined for another convincing road defeat. And there was little reason to believe otherwise as the offense was completely out of sync, the defense was struggling to get any stops and West Virginia was getting controlled on the glass.
But that’s when things changed for this group.
West Virginia trailed by 25 points with 13:04 left in the game but used a 36-11 run to take a three-point lead with 2:13 remaining. Now, the Mountaineers weren’t able to close the game out and ultimately lost in overtime but it’s the type of effort that has been lacking from this team on the road.
You don’t celebrate losses, but the Mountaineers played some of their best basketball of the season in the second half of that contest and the hope is that carries over. And with a play or two down the stretch perhaps this comeback would be remembered as something more, but that goes back to cleaning things up in order to try to take the next step with this group.
“I challenged them, and they responded in the second half. Give them all the credit in the world for giving me that effort,” Eilert said.
Related: West Virginia runs out of gas in 94-90 overtime loss to Kansas State
But considering that West Virginia was a 9-18 team, it’s encouraging that despite those struggles this team certainly still has some fight left in them despite it being a very difficult season.
That jolt is exactly what was needed in order to get this team playing not only loose but with aggression on both ends of the floor. The Mountaineers not only scored 53 points in the first half but held the Wildcats to just 31 in the process.
“We’re playing for something. Sometimes I feel like they don’t know if they’re playing for anything because we’ve gone through all kinds of struggles but we’re playing for something,” he said.
That something for Eilert is the possibility that this team could perhaps string together some consistency down the stretch and try to reach their potential. Given their record, the only pathway for this team to the postseason would be a run in the league tournament which on the surface is a longshot.
But Eilert wants to challenge his team to dig down deep to get the same effort over these final few games of the season in order to see what is possible.
“That’s the team I want to coach day in and day out,” he said.
The end result was just another loss in a season full of them on the road as the Mountaineers are now 0-12 in those meetings away from Morgantown. But the past two against Iowa State and Kansas State have certainly felt different in terms of the competition level of the team.
Yes, mistakes still need to be fixed, and time is running out but perhaps this team is going to save their best shots for the stretch run to try to close this year out with at least some positives.
“We can’t hang our heads; we’ve got to carry on that approach from the second half and get Texas Tech on Saturday,” Eilert said.
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