Josh Eilert Reacts to WVU’s Loss to SMU in Fort Myers

WVU interim HC Josh Eilert spoke with Tony Caridi following a 70-58 loss to SMU on Monday night in Fort Myers, Fla. West Virginia played a good first half before being completely outplayed in the second frame.

Overall thoughts

“I thought we had a pretty good first half, we were really rebounding it well. To be honest with you, a lot of those shots they were taking were uncontested so they started falling in the second half for them. I tell you what, we weren’t good enough there late in the game with a short bench to match their physicality, the way they run out and try to get easy points. I knew that’s what they were going to go to and they wore us down.”

Explaining using timeouts when WVU is tired

“Yeah, that’s where we are at with timeouts it seems like. I could read them in terms of their exhaustion levels and we’re really only playing six guys with our backup freshman points guard [Jeremiah Bembry] has been injured the last two days. Should’ve got Pat [Suemnick] in there a little bit more but didn’t get the opportunity to do so but he gave us good minutes in the first half. More than anything we couldn’t get that offensive cohesion and couldn’t get our defense set in the second half and it wore us down.”

On Seth Wilson’s rebounding effort

“He did a great job on the glass. That’s what we needed out of him. He had seven defensive rebounds there in the first half and that’s the type of tenacity on the boards we can have. Each and every one of those guys needs to take that approach and it has to be a consistent effort every single night. We are not quite there yet.”

On if Virginia’s slow pace style helps WVU

“I don’t want to be quick to say that but yeah. I’d like to slow this thing down a little bit and be a little more deliberate ourselves. Certainly, I want to take advantage of the open floor if we can score early, and if not score late.”