Working in a mixture of new players and going long stretches of non-conference play with several of them unavailable for long stretches, West Virginia’s men’s basketball team stumbled to a 5-8 record in non-conference play.
The Mountaineers are nearly a full week removed from a 78-75 overtime loss to Ohio State in Cleveland, and the challenge becomes far greater than at any point in non-conference play Saturday when West Virginia takes on Houston at 2 p.m. inside the Fertitta Center. The Big 12 opener for both teams in what marks the Cougars’ inaugural contest in the league can be see on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.
West Virginia suffered its sixth single-digit setback against the Buckeyes and hopes to find itself in position to fix issues in close calls down the stretch against one of three remaining unbeaten in college basketball.
“A lot of it is closing out possessions,” WVU interim head coach Josh Eilert said. “There’s so many things that we can control down the stretch. Discipline things in the final minutes that can be the difference in the game — whether it be rebounding, foul line and getting a good shot when you really need one instead of a forced shot on the fly or coming out of a timeout.
“It’s a game of inches in so many ways. What you can control, you need to control. We like to analyze a lot of these things, especially in the last 3 or 4 minutes of each game, and really try to educate as to what we can control and fix those things, so when it comes to a possession by possession battle down the stretch, we come out on top.”
Hanging in with Houston (13-0) will be quite a challenge for the Mountaineers, who have yet to win away from home this season.
Among the toughest tests for WVU against the Cougars will be rebounding. The Mountaineers enter the matchup with the worst rebounding margin of any Big 12 team at +0.3 per game — while the Cougars are fourth at +8.9.
Without center Jesse Edwards, who will be sidelined at least another couple weeks due to a fractured wrist, rebounding becomes more difficult for West Virginia against a team that has consistently prided itself on the glass in addition to its physicality and toughness under head coach Kelvin Sampson.
Eilert says improvement on the boards starts with getting more from a starting unit of guards Kerr Kriisa, Noah Farrakhan and RaeQuan Battle and forwards Quinn Slazinski and Akok Akok.
“They do a lot of other good things for you offensively, but they don’t necessarily rebound the ball as well as they should,” said Eilert, who also noted the uniqueness of his team rebounding at a better rate when utilizing zone defense as opposed to man-to-man. “That’s probably the unit on the floor the most throughout the course of the game. I had the conversation with those guys [Wednesday] that we need more production, especially from the rebounding side of things.”
Battle has played in three games for the Mountaineers, while Kriisa and Farrakhan have appeared in four. Though WVU continues to seek better results, Battle has scored at least 24 points in every contest and is averaging 27.3 points on better than 48 percent shooting.
Farrakhan has registered double-figure scoring in every outing and brings a 15.4 scoring average on better than 54 percent shooting into the matchup with Houston, while Kriisa enters off a pedestrian performance against the Buckeyes but is contributing an average of 10 points and nearly seven assists.
“Noah is probably the more unique situation. We never planned for him whatsoever,” Eilert said. “Between Kerr, Noah and Rae on the floor, the biggest challenge has been figuring out how we become a balanced attack. We have as good of guard play as anybody right now. 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.
“Teams are going to key on RaeQuan and do everything they can to take him away. That’s when we have to go to our secondary actions and go to our secondary actions that gets everybody else involved.”
Scoring will be especially tough to come by against a Cougars’ team that easily leads all of college basketball in scoring defense by surrendering a mere 49.4 points on average.
Houston has yet to allow more than 66 points in a game and only Texas A&M and Utah, both of which reached that exact number, have surpassed 60. Opponents are shooting less than 35 percent against UH, including just 27.2 from three-point range.
“Some of it you have to look at who they’re playing and sometimes as coaches, you separate the Power 5 matchups and kind of filter out the rest of them when you analyze these things,” Eilert said. “They’re an incredibly good defensive team and a very physical team.”
Guards L.J. Cryer and Emanuel Sharp are the Cougars’ top two offensive options, evidenced by their 16.9 and 13.8 scoring averages, respectively.
Cryer, a Baylor transfer, is one of the better perimeter shooters in college basketball and has made 42-of-106 threes.
“He’s by far their best offensive option so he can’t get any air space whatsoever,” Eilert said. “We have to know where he is at all times regardless of whatever defense we’re in.”
Guard Jamal Shead is third with a 9.8 scoring average, while forwards J’Wan Roberts and Ja’Vier Francis are the top rebounders at 7.1 and 5.2, respectively, for a team with seven players averaging at least 3.6 boards.
“You look at the numbers and examine them and points off turnovers and second-chance points, it’s 37 points a game between those two categories,” Eilert said. “If you’re going to have a turnover, make sure it’s not a live ball turnover so we can get our defense set. They have weapons in the half court offensively for sure, but they’re at their best when they turn people over and go downhill. In the half court, they’re at their best getting second chances.”