West Virginia must embrace the role of the aggressor
Josh Eilert didn’t sugar coat it with his team that the advantage goes to the aggressor.
And by no means was West Virginia the aggressor in the matchup against UCF which played a significant role in the 72-59 loss to the Knights.
After winning those 50-50 plays and playing with effort against Kansas, that wasn’t the case in this one as the Mountaineers struggled in many areas.
The Knights held a +9 edge on the glass and turned 11 turnovers into 18 points, while holding a 24-6 edge in fast break points. UCF also was able to effectively get to the foul line making 15 more.
West Virginia never led in this game and found themselves in a deep hole early that they spent the rest of the game unsuccessfully trying to climb out of in the road loss.
“I keep telling these guys, we have to fight, fight and fight to the bitter end. We got so disconnected in so many ways offensively, defensively. We just weren’t clicking on all cylinders and working well together out there,” Eilert said. “A lot of it I discipline.”
It’s been a theme for West Virginia against teams that have been overly physical with them dating back to the previous losses to Massachusetts and Houston.
“I worry so much about freedom of movement. If you don’t have a lot of freedom of movement and if you can’t go downhill when people are hip checking you or steering you it’s a hard game to create advantages,” Eilert said.
That’s not to say the opportunities weren’t there for this team to get the ball into the paint and kick it out for good looks but it never happened. The Knights were playing downhill, while the Mountaineers were too often going side-to-side which kept them from building any momentum.
The impending return of Jesse Edwards should help in that department, but the Mountaineers are going to have to embrace the role of being the aggressor moving forward. It’s no coincidence that in the two Big 12 wins over Texas and Kansas that West Virginia has been on the other end of this spectrum.
West Virginia will get another crack at UCF when they come to Morgantown Feb. 20, but the Mountaineers are going to have to be much more aggressive than this meeting.
“Just our physicality their size and strength at every position it makes it hard for guys going downhill. It’s a physical game out there and we didn’t create a lot of advantages,” Eilert said.
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