You never know what to expect the first time a basketball team takes the floor together against another opponent but as far as exhibition games go West Virginia checked off a lot of boxes against Charleston.
Head Coach Darian DeVries was impressed with the energy that his team played with on the offensive end as well as the ball movement. The Mountaineers had only seven turnovers in the game and overall were connected with their cutting and sharing the basketball.
“Very unselfish. I was really pleased with our first time out. A lot of times you can see some crazy stuff, but I thought our guys played very much within themselves and shared the ball,” he said.
The Mountaineers shot 47-percent from the floor and 33-percent from three, while scoring 42 points in the paint in the 94-point effort. The team also hit 15 of 16 from the foul line.
On the defensive end, the Mountaineers displayed some solid on-the-ball toughness early in the contest especially early in the game getting some hands on the basketball as well as good activity. That slipped some in the second half but the biggest complaint from the head man was the fact that late in the game Charleston was able to get into the paint and defensive rebounding.
“We try to be aggressive and tough and physical but also be smart in making sure we have some gap help. A good team defense needs to be a connected defense,” DeVries said.
That second part is critical to the success of the Mountaineers given their lack of size and DeVries made it clear that with the season set to begin in a few weeks that will be a priority.
“We have to do a better job boxing out and getting bodies on bodies on guys and being more physical in general. That’s something we’ve been talking about a lot, and it was good to get it on film now so there’s a little more to reinforce there,” DeVries said. “I think we’re going to be a good rebounding team we just got to get those habits a little better.”
Some of that is West Virginia players understanding that it’s going to require them to be physical because many of the players have been able to survive on their athleticism in the past. But with the challenges ahead those issues won’t necessarily show up as much in this game but definitely as the schedule proceeds.
“We know it’s critical as a staff, it’s something we’ve talked about from the moment this team got assembled is for us to be good defensively we have to limit people to one shot, and you can’t allow people to get those second chance opportunities,” DeVries said.
Still the opportunity just to square off against another team to see where they currently stack up in the rebounding department gives the coaching staff some things that they can reinforce moving forward. It helps matters as well that the team is bought into improvement in that department, too.
But overall, West Virginia handled things well considering it was the first time that everybody on the roster outside of Ofri Naveh was playing in front of the Coliseum crowd. It’s hard to know what to expect in those situations but the Mountaineers avoided speeding themselves up and playing cohesively.
Not bad for a debut at all.
“For a first game I thought it was a step in the right direction,” forward Tucker DeVries said.
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