West Virginia wants to be strong on the defensive end of the floor.
And with that comes time and effort in order to get things up to speed in that department. West Virginia has 12 new scholarship players on the roster and a new system in place which means that players need to master the new concepts and terminology that comes with that change.
Head coach Darian DeVries believes that his team is starting to figure out the positioning that he is looking for on that end, but it’s still very much developing.
“Great in the half court. It’s the full court portion of it, then when we’ve got into our Friday scrimmages we’ve had some slippage so that’s the part we’re trying to clean up on the most,” he said.
The Mountaineers want to be a tough, hard-nosed group that plays with energy on the defensive end and the key word to that is connectivity. That is a significant word when it comes to defense because things happen off script, and it forces to players to react and play off one another on the fly.
“How well do we cover for one another and the communication piece and anticipation that’s an important part of being a good defense,” DeVries said.
This team might not be anywhere close to a finished product, but DeVries has seen the traits of a team that can be good on that end of the floor. There is length and while there isn’t a big collection of elite individual defenders, the group collectively can be strong if they continue to show improvement.
“And that’s what you have to be anyways. We’ve shown flashes,” DeVries said.
The head coach has seen his team take leaps in the past two weeks, but now it’s about being able to do it up and down the floor in a game-like situation. That takes time, but that’s what preseason practice is all about.
DeVries has placed an emphasis on defensive rebounding during his time as a head coach and limiting opponents to one shot. This team is somewhat undersized at the five spot with Illinois transfer Amani Hansberry on the floor but that is the only spot where that occurs.
In fact, the Mountaineers have Tucker DeVries at 6-foot-7 and Toby Okani at 6-foot-8 at the three and four spots, while the other five on the roster Eduardo Andre stands at 6-foot-11. But in the end, defensive rebounding comes down to many of the same things regardless of who is on the floor.
“Still a want to and having a collective group that wants to make sure we’re hitting people and keeping people from getting where they can be in position to just jump over us,” DeVries said.
But it takes time to form habits, and the Mountaineers are certainly working to iron out those in order to be an effective unit on the defensive end by the time the season begins.
“We’re getting there,” DeVries said.
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