WVU Basketball Still Motivated with Original Roster Finally Back

On Saturday, WVU Basketball finally played with their original roster for the first time this season. West Virginia has dealt with injuries, waiver issues and a suspension, which depleted the majority of their roster that was recruited in the later months of the summer.

WVU big man Jesse Edwards was sidelined for about six weeks with a fractured right wrist. Edwards’ return vs. Oklahoma State gives the program optimism despite their 7-13 record.

“It’s hard to say [the season] starts now but it’s like you finally have everyone that you wanted to have at the start. So it’s in a way motivating for us to be like okay now we get to show that we can do, what we can actually do,” Edwards said on Tuesday. “We’ve had great wins already. We’ve had tough losses already. It’s nice to have the idea that you can finally go at full power. Now it’s up to us to show what we got and try to put behind us what we can put behind us.”

“I think it’s fun for us to finally actually be able to play,” Edwards added.

Edwards, along with RaeQuan Battle, Kerr Kriisa, Noah Farrakhan and Akok Akok have all missed significant time during the season. As soon as WVU got all four players to return to the floor in the middle of December, Edwards fractured his wrist vs. UMass on Dec. 16. One game later, Battle made his debut for West Virginia.

West Virginia has 11 regular season games left until the conference tournament. The Mountaineers seem to be excited to see what they can prove with their original team.

“Here we are finally getting everyone together. It’s like the old saying we got the band back together. It’s who we thought we were going to have from day one but here we are game 21 with all of our pieces,” WVU interim HC Josh Eilert said. “We certainly haven’t given up by any means. Let’s look at these 11 games we have left in the conference and let’s maximize our potential and show what we could have been from day one.”

West Virginia will get their chance on Wednesday vs. Cincinnati. The Mountaineers and Bearcats will tip off at 7 p.m. at the WVU Coliseum on ESPN+.