--West Virginia head coach Josh Eilert said it's not where they wanted to be but a good top 25 win at home and now they'll get ready to go on the road and play Oklahoma. The team will fly out of Pittsburgh today due to the issues with travel but they'll be leaving at 11 a.m. to charter out to Norman. They will practice when they get there but it's a great challenge and the hope is that they can build on what they were able to do Saturday. West Virginia isn't content by any means but it should be the standard in their program that they can beat anybody if they play together and lock in on a game plan.
--Some of the staff members have four-wheel drive trucks, if they need to go get players due to the weather issues. But he hasn't heard of anything today. The travel in this league is a beast overall so it will be a long travel day and they will adjust the practice accordingly based on what their legs are like from all the travel today.
--Road wins are difficult to get in this league. One thing Eilert pays close attention to is days of rest prior to a game. For example, Kansas will have an extra day of rest prior to playing West Virginia this weekend and that is huge in this league when rest is as important as anything.
--Top to bottom Oklahoma is really athletic and they have a lot of pieces from a lot of different places. They only play about eight or nine guys but their rotation is really solid. They've got good bigs between Godwin and Hugely and a lot of different pieces. They've got a lot of pieces that work really well together and they really complement each other and it shows on the floor with the success they've had this year. Javian McCollum is the high volume guy shooting it and he can get on a roll quickly.
--There's been a lot of adjustments and if something isn't working they aren't going to continue to go to it. Sometimes the players just go through the motions if you're not doing things to change and they needed to make some to be more competitive especially defensively. The offense has stayed fairly consistent with more wrinkles and different actions to different people but defensively they needed to figure out what they can do to be successful. They've done a lot of things to try to sure that up and hopefully they can build on it.
--It's a pain in the butt for the entire program when you have to consistently adjust things. Some guys pick it up and the veterans do it a lot more than the freshmen, but everybody has to be connected and the defensive changes they've tried to simplify some of them and put some simple rules and principles to buy into. Now, as they build they will try to take some things away to sure up some weaknesses. The staff came to the table to present a different defensive scheme and they all met to implement it on the fly.
--Noah Farrakhan has always had a tremendous amount of confidence and that's the biggest hurdle with Pat Suemnick. They've forced their hands to give Suemnick as big of an opportunity as possible and it was up to him to show what he could do with it. He has built that since then and it's been snowballing. Pat Suemnick does have an illness heading into this game but it's just that time of the year.
--West Virginia has a lot of help side on the back side and they have to be cognizant of where the scorers are on the floor.
--Eilert said he would give a majority of the credit to coach McCabe and coach Ruoff for the defensive changes. The attention to detail is as high as anybody he knows when it comes to Ruoff. He had an opportunity to sure up a lot of the defensive issues so when you got good people behind you and you can trust them it really helps. Ruoff has taken that role on in the last three or four days and he's done an excellent job with it.
--Hopefully there's smoother sailing ahead for sure and he's really looking forward to that challenge of getting Jesse Edwards back into the equation. You become way more familiar with each other throughout the season and there's more teams to scout but it's still the same concept with knowing your opponent better.
--Getting Jesse Edwards the ball and being effective inside out is different than getting Patrick Suemnick the ball, as the latter deals better with isolation and space while Edwards is more of a traditional low post threat. They're two different players in a lot of ways.
--Some of the staff members have four-wheel drive trucks, if they need to go get players due to the weather issues. But he hasn't heard of anything today. The travel in this league is a beast overall so it will be a long travel day and they will adjust the practice accordingly based on what their legs are like from all the travel today.
--Road wins are difficult to get in this league. One thing Eilert pays close attention to is days of rest prior to a game. For example, Kansas will have an extra day of rest prior to playing West Virginia this weekend and that is huge in this league when rest is as important as anything.
--Top to bottom Oklahoma is really athletic and they have a lot of pieces from a lot of different places. They only play about eight or nine guys but their rotation is really solid. They've got good bigs between Godwin and Hugely and a lot of different pieces. They've got a lot of pieces that work really well together and they really complement each other and it shows on the floor with the success they've had this year. Javian McCollum is the high volume guy shooting it and he can get on a roll quickly.
--There's been a lot of adjustments and if something isn't working they aren't going to continue to go to it. Sometimes the players just go through the motions if you're not doing things to change and they needed to make some to be more competitive especially defensively. The offense has stayed fairly consistent with more wrinkles and different actions to different people but defensively they needed to figure out what they can do to be successful. They've done a lot of things to try to sure that up and hopefully they can build on it.
--It's a pain in the butt for the entire program when you have to consistently adjust things. Some guys pick it up and the veterans do it a lot more than the freshmen, but everybody has to be connected and the defensive changes they've tried to simplify some of them and put some simple rules and principles to buy into. Now, as they build they will try to take some things away to sure up some weaknesses. The staff came to the table to present a different defensive scheme and they all met to implement it on the fly.
--Noah Farrakhan has always had a tremendous amount of confidence and that's the biggest hurdle with Pat Suemnick. They've forced their hands to give Suemnick as big of an opportunity as possible and it was up to him to show what he could do with it. He has built that since then and it's been snowballing. Pat Suemnick does have an illness heading into this game but it's just that time of the year.
--West Virginia has a lot of help side on the back side and they have to be cognizant of where the scorers are on the floor.
--Eilert said he would give a majority of the credit to coach McCabe and coach Ruoff for the defensive changes. The attention to detail is as high as anybody he knows when it comes to Ruoff. He had an opportunity to sure up a lot of the defensive issues so when you got good people behind you and you can trust them it really helps. Ruoff has taken that role on in the last three or four days and he's done an excellent job with it.
--Hopefully there's smoother sailing ahead for sure and he's really looking forward to that challenge of getting Jesse Edwards back into the equation. You become way more familiar with each other throughout the season and there's more teams to scout but it's still the same concept with knowing your opponent better.
--Getting Jesse Edwards the ball and being effective inside out is different than getting Patrick Suemnick the ball, as the latter deals better with isolation and space while Edwards is more of a traditional low post threat. They're two different players in a lot of ways.
