West Virginia head basketball coach Josh Eilert isn’t shy with what he wants from the fan base this season.
“Give us your full support and you’ll be very pleasantly surprised. We’re going to play with a chip on our shoulder and this state has always operated with that,” he said. “I think we’ll feed off of it and you’re going to see some things you probably didn’t realize you were going to see."
Eilert inherited the program in June after legendary head coach Bob Huggins stepped down and was tasked with not only retaining what he could of the roster but adding to it. The Mountaineers were successful in doing that despite some departures, but now with practice underway the focus shifts.
On the offensive side of the floor, Eilert decided to scrap everything from before and start over. He worked with his assistant Da’Sean Butler to do things to help with the spacing and keeping the corners filled while putting the ball into the hands of the right players in order to be more modern on that side of the ball.
“We’ve put in a lot of sets so far now we’re looking to put in some continuity so it can flow from the sets into the continuity. It’s not the prettiest thing right now but hopefully in a month’s time it will be a well-oiled machine,” the first-year head coach said.
Butler took things from both his playing days and his coaching career to shape what the Mountaineers were going to do as well as make several changes.
" I would just say some of the actions, not the entirety of the offense, are things I've seen and played in from time to time and most of the stuff is what Josh wanted as well. We wanted to change some things in terms of spacing and some of the things we lacked prior," Butler added.
Eilert wants to play fast and push the ball while getting the playmakers involved.
Unlike on offense, West Virginia is keeping many of the same principles as before but there are still challenges given how differently players have done things in previous stops. The focus has been getting each of them on the same page, teaching things and then it carrying over to the floor.
Expect the Mountaineers to still use a heavy dose of man although that could be different considering the fact that the depth is so limited to start.
“We have four, fifth-year guys and they all come from different defensive backgrounds. Jesse (Edwards) sat in a 2-3 zone for four years. We don’t have a lot of depth at the five so one of my main focuses is to keep him out of foul trouble. We need him on the floor,” Eilert said.
All the while, Eilert is balancing a team that features so many new pieces and trying to establish trust and a culture which doesn’t happen overnight. That has been coming along to the point where the players are starting to rely on each other and understand what is being asked of them.
“We’re trying to do everything we can to build chemistry,” he said.
Eilert is confident that his top seven to eight players will be able to compete night in and night out in the rugged Big 12 Conference. But he is going to need some of those players further down to make a leap in order to help round things out.
And in practice he has been able to see what have been the most effective lineups and combinations to date, although they haven’t gotten close to sorting out a starting five at this stage.
Eilert plans on putting his own stamp on the West Virginia basketball program and is excited to showcase what exactly what will look like when the season opens in the near future.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @zachanderson_11
