Josh Eilert Previews Big 12 Opener vs. Houston
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00:00 Members of the media, thank you for joining us for today's zoom press conference with West Virginia head men's basketball coach Josh Eilert.
00:15 We will start with an opening statement from coach Eilert. Coach, I'll turn it over to you.
00:20 Thanks, Mike.
00:22 I just want to give you an update since Saturday in Ohio State.
00:28 Took the opportunity to take a couple days off, you know, and get our legs under us before we started prep for Houston.
00:36 So we gave them the holiday off Sunday and then the holiday and then we're in the middle of four straight days of prep here for Houston.
00:45 So last couple of days we went hard and gave everything.
00:52 Very, very competitive practice the last couple of days.
00:55 Now we'll try to back off a little bit, knowing we got a early game on Saturday in Houston and we won't have a shoot around on Saturday morning.
01:06 So we'll go down to travel down to Houston tomorrow, you know, early afternoon and practice there on our court and get ready to get ready to go competing.
01:15 It's very, very good. Houston team and a very physical team that is going to present a lot of challenges.
01:21 But we're looking forward to taking on that challenge. OK, thank you, coach.
01:26 Our first question comes from Greg Hunter. So, Josh, but now vast majority of your losses have come in very close games.
01:35 Games had come down to the final minute, final seconds. How do you get over the top in close games?
01:39 What's the difference? I think it's a lot of it's just closing out possessions.
01:46 So many things we can control down the stretch that discipline things on the final minutes.
01:52 It can be the difference in the game, whether it be rebound, foul line,
01:55 whether it be getting a good shot when you really need one instead of a four shot on the fly, not coming out of a timeout or such.
02:06 So there's a lot of things in the game of basketball, a lot of a lot of sense.
02:11 You know, it's a game of interest in so many ways. So what you can control, you need to control.
02:16 And we like to analyze a lot of these things, especially in the last three or four minutes each game,
02:22 and really try to educate as to what we can control and try to fix those things.
02:28 So when it comes down to possession, but possession battle down the stretch, you come out on top.
02:36 You mentioned rebounding there, obviously Saturday in Cleveland, very bad early, much better the second half.
02:43 Did you see something in the second half that helped it, something you did really bad the first half?
02:48 What was the difference? You know, it shouldn't be this way.
02:52 It typically is in game basketball, but we seem to be rebound a little better in the zone than we have in the main.
02:59 I've studied a lot of the lineup combinations and even kind of, you know, I guess challenged our starting five.
03:07 They're probably one of the bottom, bottom two lineup combinations that I've used in the past three games.
03:15 When you look at our roster is the way it is, you kind of examine the last three games and they're not that starting five unit probably isn't.
03:26 It's one of the bottom two rebounding. Now they do a lot of other good things very offensively,
03:33 but they don't necessarily rebound the ball as well as they should.
03:36 So, you know, that's probably the unit that's on the floor the most during the course of the game.
03:41 And I had that conversation with those guys yesterday.
03:44 We need more production, especially from the rebounding side of things, from that starting five.
03:51 Our next question goes to John Antoni.
03:55 Gosh, I'm looking at all a lot of their numbers here, and they've got a lot that are really concerning.
04:01 Is it a matter of talking to your guys about don't get frustrated because they're so good defensively and I think only two teams have given up 60.
04:11 They've only given up 66 twice this year. Other than that, they've been really nobody's got much from them at all.
04:19 Yeah, I mean, some of it you got to take into account and they are a very, very good defensive team.
04:26 Some of it's got to you got to look at who they're playing.
04:30 Sometimes as coaches, you kind of separate those, you know, the power five teams, our five matchups from,
04:38 you know, and kind of filter out the rest of them when you analyze these things.
04:42 But they are you know, don't get me wrong, they're they're incredibly good defensive team and very, very physical team.
04:50 And, you know, you look at the numbers and you examine them points off turnovers and second chance points.
04:58 It's like thirty seven points a game between those two categories.
05:03 So, you know, if we can take care of the ball, obviously you take care of the ball.
05:07 And if you're going to have a turnover, make sure it's not a live ball turnover by any means.
05:12 So we can get our defense set. They got weapons in the half court offensively, for sure.
05:19 But they're their best when they turn people over and go downhill.
05:24 And, you know, in the half court, they're the best, you know, get second chances.
05:29 Is Kelvin using Crowder the same way Scott did at Baylor?
05:32 I mean, I think three point numbers is about similar.
05:36 He's he's certainly by far their best offensive option.
05:42 So he can't get any airspace whatsoever. So we got no worries at all times, regardless of whatever defense we're in.
05:51 Thanks. Members of the media, please use the raised hand feature for your question.
05:57 We'll we'll go back to Greg Hunter. So, Josh, in terms of Rayquan,
06:03 obviously twice in the last since he got back in the lineup, he's he's gotten player of the week in the big 12,
06:10 giving you exactly what you thought you'd get out of him. Does he even have more that he can do?
06:15 What's your thoughts with Rayquan? He's got more.
06:18 I mean, he's he's a very coachable young man. What's makes him, you know, he's a great person, great teammate.
06:25 He wants to do everything he can for us to win.
06:30 So he'd be very happy if he scored five points and we got to win.
06:34 That's the type of person he is, that's the type of teammate he is. So he's open to figure out what it is we need of him.
06:43 We've had conversations with him. He's very athletic and he can recover really well on the defensive end.
06:49 But sometimes he can jump out of position just because, you know, he's taking chances and bouncing side to side.
06:57 So so he can certainly do more for us defensively, create more havoc.
07:03 And he's very good with, say, anticipation in terms of running through, you know, passing lanes.
07:09 So we can get more of that out of him.
07:12 But we can also use him more as a decoy from time to time because teams are going to key on him.
07:18 They're going to key heavily on him. So he should be drawing their best defender each and every night, which is going to open other guys up.
07:26 So like I said, you know, Raekwon is going to do whatever Raekwon can do to help us win.
07:32 That's the type of kid he is. And he's a coachable young man.
07:36 And I'm excited to continue to work with him.
07:38 Then can you also give us an update on Jesse's health? How's he coming along?
07:44 I believe today they're taking that cast off today, from what I've understood.
07:49 My understanding is that it's coming off today and then they'll have to do some imaging here in the coming weeks to figure out
07:56 how well healed. So don't know anything more than that.
08:00 So not sure where it's going to land.
08:03 So hopefully everything's smooth sailing. We can have him back here in a couple of weeks.
08:10 Kevin Kinder.
08:12 Russ, we got a brief mention of Pat Sumnick's contributions in the Ohio State game.
08:18 Is that more along the lines of what you need to get from him and is a reasonable goal, like,
08:23 you know, eight points, five, six rebounds a game. Does that get you a little bit of that additional production you're wanting?
08:32 Yeah, it's 100 percent what I kind of expected out of Pat, you know, from day one this season.
08:38 So, you know, every time he steps on the floor and gets a little more time, a little more confidence,
08:45 I think it's going to be to his benefit and to our benefit.
08:48 And so that second half he had against Ohio State was huge, you know, four for four from the field,
08:54 getting us eight points and even got the game tying bucket there late in regulation.
09:01 So that's going to be go a long ways with him and our program and our trust in him.
09:07 But, you know, he's the one of the biggest, strongest guy on the floor.
09:11 But he's going to be critical to our success coming up in the game against Houston because of how physical they play.
09:18 And from our standpoint, he's going to bring that same physicality to them.
09:22 And so we can match ahead on.
09:26 And then one thing on Kerr, it seems like he had the best synergy early on with Jesse,
09:32 that their games kind of matched the way Kerr delivers the ball above the rim and things like that.
09:37 Is that something that your other bigs can kind of develop a little bit or is that just something special in the way Jesse and Kerr's games kind of mesh with each other?
09:46 You're talking to Kerr?
09:48 Yes.
09:49 Oh, yeah.
09:51 Yeah, they got a special connection because the way Kerr can deliver that ball.
09:55 Yeah. So I think some of the other bigs, they don't play the same way.
10:03 Cook can be he can be a rim-round threat, like I believe going into that game, we we repped a lot just between those two, that connection.
10:12 So, no, it'll be nice to to put those guys in the correct position because Cook really is a five man.
10:22 You know, he's a four man and stretch four.
10:24 That's that's can really give you a lot of, you know, give you a lot on the defensive end.
10:30 But he's not going to give you that low post threat where you can throw it down close and get an easy bucket.
10:37 He's he's a stretch for by by nature.
10:40 He's just doing everything he can to help us in the situation.
10:44 So he's buying us minutes to five.
10:47 Pat's kind of the same way. He's more of a stretch for himself and probably leans closer to the five and the cook.
10:54 And he's given us everything he can, given the situation.
10:58 So we're kind of putting band-aids on these things and trying to trying to heal up as the process.
11:07 John Antony, I have a couple more here on Houston.
11:11 You mentioned some of the games that you were studying, I'm assuming Utah, Xavier, Texas A&M are three that you studied pretty closely.
11:20 Any commonality you see there with the way Houston played against those three teams?
11:25 Yeah, I mean, look how physical they were. I mean, the Texas A&M game for sure was one of the most physical games I've seen all year on film.
11:34 And so. You know, especially going into these games, you worry about how they're going to be called for us, that's going to be critical.
11:44 I said it going into the UMass game, what is physical as they are.
11:48 It just depends on how the game's called. If it's called.
11:54 If they let things go early and that's the precedent they set, then it's going to be to their benefit.
12:02 I noticed here, too, looking down their line, every single guy they have on the force capable offensive rebounding, including Cryer.
12:11 You look at some of these offensive, they got 209 overall.
12:14 That's got to be a huge concern for you. Yeah, a huge concern.
12:18 I mean, certainly it's concern no matter who we play.
12:22 I've brought that up before we played a game. Defensive rebounding is going to be an issue.
12:29 I said it this summer, I think in the first media session, you know, our guys, he put it as part of their team goals.
12:36 So it was they knew it was important to me and they knew it was something I saw as a weakness of ours and something we continue to try to shore up.
12:45 So, you know, we have our challenges and, you know, we're not stepping away from those.
12:50 We're we're meeting them head on. We don't have the right to Jesse Edwards to rebound the basketball.
12:57 And there was a lot of pressure on him early in those games to to to shore up our rebounding.
13:03 Now we don't have it. So there's even more pressure on everybody in the program to pull their pull their weight on the defensive end, you know, finishing possessions.
13:12 If the start was to try to get it to the glass right and then score off that, is that what they try to do?
13:17 Basically, and going back to the Ohio State game, something we can shore up most.
13:23 And I told those guys coming out of that first practice coming back, the one glaring thing against Ohio State, they continue to get middle drives on us.
13:33 They continue to get paint touches. And we all know, you know, starting the game of basketball,
13:38 people get paint touches and they break your defense down to the middle floor, opens everything.
13:44 And so we just got to do a much better job of staying in front of guys and what we say, guard guard your yard, guard.
13:51 I mean, be true to who you're guarding and keep them out of the paint and force baseline where your help is.
13:58 So we can do a heck of a lot better job.
14:00 And if I could say one thing that was a difference maker in that entire game was was keeping guys out of the middle floor.
14:08 I guess taking the guards moving them east, west, north, south.
14:12 Well, you want to send a baseline, send a baseline where help is, if you're if you close down on the wing, close out on the high side,
14:20 send a baseline, you don't want to go to the middle of the floor and get a paint touch where everything kind of breaks down.
14:27 Our next question goes to Justin Jackson.
14:31 Hey, good morning, Coach. How you doing? Good. How are you, Justin? Good.
14:34 Hey, another one on that, Raekwon here, you know, I was just kind of thinking earlier, you know, to like the casual basketball, college basketball observer.
14:45 You're talking about a kid who. Basically, it looks like he came off the street and started scoring, you know, twenty seven points a game for you.
14:54 Obviously, that's not the case. He's practiced, he's worked out even when he wasn't playing.
14:59 But. What is there to be said, though, for the kid in his situation, you know, he hadn't played, he's kind of coming in cold and, you know,
15:11 you being an analytical guy, you know, he comes in and he's scoring 20 some points a game.
15:15 And, you know, from an analytical standpoint, how much can you count on that moving forward?
15:20 And how much is as his scoring maybe kind of adjusted your analytics, I guess, a little bit?
15:30 We we plan on having Ray from day one, so everything we did had Ray as part of the plan.
15:36 Some of the things we plan on running and target is running, you know, through the preseason,
15:43 we didn't really get to because we didn't have that type of player out on the floor.
15:48 No, it's probably the more unique situation, knowing that he wasn't going to play.
15:53 We never planned for him whatsoever.
15:56 So putting those three between curve, Noah and Ray on the floor has been the biggest challenges to figure out how we become a very,
16:05 very balanced attack because our our guard play and our, you know, as good guard play as anybody right now.
16:12 And we're just trying to shore up from an analytical standpoint, how can we be effective as a team and try not to be so one sided sometimes?
16:24 So teams are going to key on on on a right one.
16:28 They're going to do everything they can to take him away.
16:30 And that's where we got to find some secondary actions, go to our secondary actions that gets everybody else involved.
16:41 Mike Casasa. Hey, Josh, how are you?
16:46 My question on Quinn, I was looking at just like his scoring numbers and just out of curiosity,
16:53 figuring with all those guards coming in that naturally somebody's productivity is going to slip.
16:58 And I figured it might have been him. But then I was looking at it and, you know, his shot volume is about the same.
17:02 He's rebounded well. He's had a pretty consistently. I don't know if he's been affected or if he hasn't been affected,
17:08 if he's been better than maybe meets the eye or if he's been pretty steady and hasn't really changed the way he's played or been made to change.
17:16 I guess this part one is, is what have you seen from him as things have changed around him?
17:20 I think his shot a little bit, you know, I wouldn't say he's in a slump by any means.
17:25 I don't have to really study the numbers in the last few games, but he hadn't been the same.
17:31 He hadn't had the same comfort level on a shot. You know, yesterday at practice, I think he even mentioned to me, it's like, you know, coach,
17:38 I got it back. Feels good. Like I think he was trying to to aim it, so to speak.
17:43 So sometimes it's shooters and guys get in our own head.
17:47 But, you know, he didn't he didn't 100 percent shoot it with that type of confidence that he was shooting it early.
17:54 And, you know, we need to we need to get him back into the fold.
17:58 There'll be a vital part of our offensive strategy moving forward.
18:02 And, you know, guys go through, you know, it's a roller coaster sometimes during the course of the season.
18:08 And it certainly has been for us. You know, we have built that chemistry that, you know,
18:12 most every other team's built late in the summer, even, you know, on our foreign tours.
18:18 We're finally getting all of our guys together to start building the chemistry.
18:22 So, you know, it's it's so so we've taken our lumps in the process and lost some close games.
18:29 And consequently, I mean, we're five and eight.
18:33 But regardless, we're getting closer to having everybody back in the fold and building that chemistry.
18:38 And and hopefully we're starting to get closer to peak West Virginia basketball, what we're capable of, you know, comes conference play.
18:46 So it's a new season for us. We're looking forward to that.
18:50 And then one more, I want to feel mind that he's not there to really hand the ball out and distribute.
18:54 You're talking about, you know, teams keying on him a little bit.
18:58 He's getting a lot of shots, scoring a lot of points. I get it.
19:01 That's his job. But does it sound like he needs to to use the attention to swing the ball and get more assist?
19:07 They get to assist so far. But again, I understand that's not his job.
19:10 But is there growth in that area? Is that kind of part of what you're talking about?
19:13 I mean, for us, you know, our biggest thing, top to bottom, you know, lies our offense.
19:19 It's short shot selection. We need to figure out how we generate more uncontested shots.
19:25 So many of our shots are really tough shots.
19:28 Ray Vaughn can make really tough shots. Noah can make really tough shots.
19:32 But as a team, we need to find out how we generate more uncontested shots.
19:36 We need to find out how we generate more. You know, just like Houston generates 30 points,
19:42 whether it be off turnovers and second chance points, we need to find out how we get some easy bucks.
19:47 We can't go into all these games thinking that we're going to, you know,
19:51 outscore people taking hard shots in the half court night in and night out.
19:56 So we got to find from a team perspective and coaching staff, how do we generate some easier buckets?
20:03 And whether it be in the half court, whether, you know, when you pass up some shots,
20:07 or you talk all the time about, you know, should we score early in transition or we score late?
20:13 Let's not take, you know, what we consider an A, B or C shot.
20:18 Let's not take a C shot when we get a B shot late in the clock.
20:22 You know, we want to grade out some of these shots. So we just need to be more mindful of that.
20:27 It's going to come with time. You know, these guys are finally just getting a chance to play together.
20:31 And we're three games in and here in three or four more games, we'll have Jesse back in the fold.
20:38 We'll be a different team then too. So it's something we got to manage as we move forward.
20:45 Any other questions for Coach Eilert? Please use the raised hand feature.
20:55 Coach, that's all we have for today. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
20:59 Thank you.
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