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MORGANTOWN -- When St. John's comes to the Coliseum to face West Virginia in the Big East-Big 12 Battle at 7 p.m. on Friday, it will be a game with more angles than a geometry textbook.
It's a crucial early-season game for both teams, trying to establish themselves with the Mountaineers 3-3 and the Red Storm 4-2.
Let's look at some of the angles.
-- It matches a coach with 895 wins and a Hall of Fame resume' that would fill chapters in a book in St. John's Rick Pitino against a coach with 3 wins and a head coaching resume' that wouldn't fill a postcard.
"He's a Hall of Fame coach and done incredible things throughout his career. I've watched him as my career has advanced. There's so many things he does on a basketball court that are very admirable. It's been fun to see how successful he has become at every different school he's been at," Eilert said.
"But I had the same type of feeling going against Coach (Tony) Bennett at Virginia. He's done an incredible job there and I have always really, really admired him and the way he handled his program. It's certainly an honor to go against coaches of that stature but I don't put too much thought into that.
"I go with what I can control from a game plan perspective to put ourselves in the best position to win the game on a given day."
-- It is a St. John's team deep in talent that likes to run against a West Virginia team short of players who can't win unless they can slow down St. John's.
"If you look at it from his shoes, he's certainly going to try and be as physical as possible knowing he's got the bodies," Eilert said. "He's probably going to keep it as high-paced as possible, and we're going to try and do the exact opposite.
"It's going to be who imposes their will, given their circumstances I am totally anticipating him turning up the pressure on us knowing we're shorthanded and they can wear us down."
-- It is a game that matches WVU forward Quinn Slazinski against his former coach at Iona in Pitino and a number of his former teammates from two years of playing under Pitino at the New York school.
Does this add pressure to Slazinski's task?
"Funny you ask that," Slazinski began. "The man we play tonight actually taught me that pressure is one of the greatest gifts an athlete can receive. It's when life calls upon you to step up in the moment. It's a game I've circled for a long time on my calendar.
"I'm excited to see some old friends and teammates. I'm looking at this as just another game, but obviously I'll be more amped up but the main objective is to win. I'm not here to play one-on-one against Rick Pitino. I'm here to beat St. John's."
-- It is a game that well may be decided down low in a battle of post players in the Mountaineers' 6-11, 240-pound Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards, their best player, who averages 15.8 points and 10.7 rebounds a game, against Joel Soriano, a 6-11, 250-pound transfer from Fordham who averages a similar 16.2 points and 10.3 rebounds a game.
"Based on what I've seen on film, I would anticipate them believing Soriano can handle Jesse one-on-one, so we might not see the double teams that we've seen in the past," Eilert said.Thursday. "They've shown a lot of digs, but they haven't really shown a hard double. It's going to be a good matchup. Those guys are really good bigs, and it's going to be fun to see them battle."
"It's going to be a great battle," Slazinski said. "Obviously, wearing a West Virginia jersey, I bet on our side every day, twice on Sunday."
It should change WVU's offensive philosophy.
"We will be able to run our offense," Slazinski said of Edwards not having to always fight through double and triple teams. "The main objective of throwing in to Jesse is to create an advantage for us. A couple of kids on our team, their shooting percentage probably isn't where they'd like, but I see them every day in practice and they can shoot.
"I've been that player before. My sophomore year I shot like 20% from 3. As a fifth-year guy, I tell them it takes just one game to settle in, lock in and then just kiss the rest goodbye."
-- It is the Mountaineers representing the Big 12 against the Big East, a conference in which they played from 1995 to 2012 before jumping to the Big 12. The Mountaineers were 13-7 against St. John's during that time, including one span of 10 consecutive victories.
WVU is 2-2 in the Big East-Big 12 Battle, but in the inaugural game of the challenge in 2019 St. John's nipped WVU 71-69 in Madison Square Garden.
With realignment and expansion, the future beyond next year, which is the final year of the contract, is unknown.