West Virginia battles back in rematch with Knights
West Virginia was bullied in their first meeting with UCF, so the Mountaineers decided to switch things up.
After the Knights dictated pace and controlled the game, especially around the rim in the 72-59 win over West Virginia in January the Mountaineers made the decision to force something different.
Head Coach Josh Eilert and his coaching staff elected to use zone along with changing the defenses. The results were a UCF team that shot just 33-percent from the field and 24-percent from three. In total, the Knights launched 38 three-pointers but managed to only connect on 9 of them.
“We were able to kind of mix our defense a little bit especially with our game plan. They average about six threes a game and if they hit 20 kudos to them,” guard RaeQuan Battle said.
The Mountaineers knew that with the style of defense they were playing there would be opportunities for the Knights to make shots from the perimeter. But it was something that the team had to live with, and they couldn’t get frustrated by what unfolded when they did make some shots.
The goal was to create confusion for the opposing offense but given the difficulty of moving to different defenses, the Mountaineers had to avoid confusing themselves in the process. The end result was almost night and day from the first meeting and the zone was a big part of that.
“And we rebound it pretty well out of zone which necessarily shouldn’t be the case,” Eilert said.
That was aided by the fact the Knights went to a smaller lineup due to the zone looks and the presence of Jesse Edwards in the middle after he missed the first meeting.
On the offensive end, the Mountaineers got sped up in the first meeting and especially struggled with the token press which forced them to go side-to-side and slow the offense down. That wasn’t the case in this one as West Virginia started fast and continued to attack the entire game.
Instead of playing on their heels, West Virginia was the aggressor.
“It was a night and day difference,” Eilert said.
Frustration was obvious in that first meeting but this time the Mountaineers remained poised and didn’t let what happened on the court affect how they handled the situation. That seems easy enough, but it required focus from everybody on the roster to avoid falling inti the same trap.
The win snapped a four-game losing streak and now the focus for West Virginia is to try to build off this moving forward with what still remains a very challenging slate beginning with Iowa State this weekend. It’s been a challenging season for this team, but this win was certainly a step in the right direction.
And the hope is that the Mountaineers can put something together heading into the league tournament.
“It’s where you need to be playing your best ball,” forward Quinn Slazinski said.
----------
• 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
