Takeaways: Players are Embracing Their Roles for WVU Basketball

When WVU basketball lost to Pitt, the Mountaineers looked as far away from a team as five players on a court possibly could.

A few weeks later, the Mountaineers are operating like a well-oiled machine, as evident during the team’s 73-60 win over Georgetown on Friday night. It simply took time for a team that had just come together over the summer to learn how to play with one another.

“That’s where I think we’ve grown the most these last couple of weeks,” first-year WVU coach Darian DeVries said. “It takes a while when you have all these new guys coming from different schools and now they’re all getting thrown together. When you start playing games it’s how do I fit in, how do I best utilize my talents to fit in to helping us win?”

Players have started to find their roles on the team, and as they embrace them, the Mountaineers have looked better and better.

“I feel like that role acceptance on teams is a huge part of winning,” DeVries said. “That’s what keeps some teams from winning, the inability to do that. I feel like our guys are completely bought into whatever I’ve got to do to help the team and they’re growing into that now.”

Eduardo Andre is a shot-blocker 

For as much has been made about West Virginia’s lack of size, the Mountaineers are blocking a lot of shots this season, averaging 6.4 rejections per game. Backup center Eduardo Andrew is averaging two blocks per game, playing only 14 minutes per night.

Friday was Andre’s best performance of the season, swatting four Georgetown attempts, three during a 19-2 run in the second half.

“I really thought that Eduardo ignited some of that for us,” DeVries said. “He blocked a couple of shots that led to us getting out in transition and we were able to get a couple of open looks we weren’t getting in the half-court.”

It’s clear Andre’s value to the Mountaineers is going to come on the defensive end, providing crucial rim protection as the only player over 6-foot-9. He has as many blocks, 14, as field goal attempts this season.

“That ability to block shots is a huge deal for us,” DeVries said. “He had four tonight, so it was a big difference in the game.”

Sencire Harris does everything but score 

Speaking of players who won’t bring much to the table on offense, Sencire Harris scored 6 points on 2-7 shooting but was a team-best +19 on the floor against Georgetown.

How? He pulled down a team-high nine rebounds and held Georgetown’s top scorer Jayden Epps to just four points in the second half.

“Sometimes people get so caught up in scoring, but what (Harris) did tonight defensively, that’s hard to do,” DeVries said. To control a guy like Epps and go get nine rebounds and lead the break in transition. There are a lot of things that guys do that impact winning besides scoring.”

The Mountaineers only care about winning

There’s a real identity throughout the WVU basketball team that the players are willing to do anything to help the team win. Whether that’s Andre and Harris accepting their roles as defense-first guys or someone like Javon Small yet again refusing to refer to himself as the team’s star player after scoring 26 points on Friday.

“I just think he’s embracing being a part of this team,” DeVries said. “He’s all about winning…Javon doesn’t care, all he wants to do is win, that’s his main priority.”

Starting center Amani Hansberry had a bit of a down game only scoring six points against Georgetown, and yet he was the most excited for how Andre, the guy who cuts into his minutes, played.

“He was the happiest guy in the locker room for Eduardo after the game,” DeVries said. “He made sure to single (Andre) out to make sure he got the praise he deserved.”

For a related story, a rowdy Coliseum crowd gives home-court advantage to WVU basketball.