West Virginia now sits at 5-8 on the season and the clock is ticking if things want to get turned around.
That won’t be made any easier by the fact that the Mountaineers are about to enter Big 12 Conference play with a gauntlet over the next five games.
West Virginia will first open up on the road at Houston before hosting Kansas State and Texas. Then a trip to Oklahoma is on deck before hosting Kansas. Out of that list, four of those teams are nationally ranked and whether or not the program can string together some success could go a long way.
And the Mountaineers still aren’t at full strength with center Jesse Edwards out for at least a few more weeks as he recovers from a fractured wrist that has sidelined him the past few games.
“At the end of the day we’re 5-8. We’ve gone through a heck of a lot of challenges to get to this point but we’re getting closer and closer to full strength,” head coach Josh Eilert said.
Still even with these challenges, the Mountaineers continue to battle. The rally late against Ohio State was a sign of that and while West Virginia didn’t win the game, the fight was there. That alone isn’t going to win you basketball games, but it’s a good sign that this team is still engaged.
“These guys have an incredible amount of resiliency and fight. By no means are we ever going to quit or lay down,” Eilert said.
The Mountaineers are going to need each piece of the roster to step up moving forward and the fact that this is a veteran club is something that should help them.
It’s been challenge after challenge for this team but the time to turn it around is now because there isn’t much time left to do it.
----------
• 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
