Mountaineers Face Litmus Test vs. No. 3 Houston
Kevin Kinder/BlueGoldNews.com Trending
MORGANTOWN -- After a fierce and prolonged fight to get onto the basketball court this year after transferring to West Virginia from Montana State, a fight that will almost certainly force the NCAA to change its transfer requirements, RaeQuan Battle has exploded into national prominence.
Three games into his WVU career he has won two Big 12 Player of the Week awards while debuting with a pair of 29-point performance, followed by a 24-point outing against a good Ohio State team.
But, when you ask Battle's Mountaineer coach Josh Eilert the question that songstress Peggy Lee popularized in her hit song of yesteryear "Is That All There Is?" the answer that comes back is a definitive "No."
As the 5-8 Mountaineers continue to strive themselves with a completely remade roster and lineup, they stumble into Houston for a 2 p.m. game on Saturday against what well may be the litmus test for them as a team and Battle as a player, facing the Houston Cougars, ranked the nation's No. 3 team.
Houston owns not only one of the nation's most rugged and best defenses, but it also brings a 13-game winning streak into the meeting that can be seen on ESPN+.
As good as Battle has been, Eilert believes he can be better, and when he reaches that point in his development, WVU, too, will show marked improvement.
"He's got more," Eilert said when asked if we've already seen all Eilert has. "He's a very coachable young man. He's a great person, great teammate who wants to do everything he can for us to win. He'd be very happy if he scored five points and we won."
Somehow, one suspects that might be true but that he'd be even happier if he scored 20 points and the team won.
Still, the point is, Battle to date has only shown himself as a scorer, the reason partly being that's what he was brought in to do and partly because it is an absolute necessity as they work him, guard Kerr Kriisa and Noah Farrakhan and forward Akok Akok into the lineup and await the return of big man Jessee Edwards from a broken wrist.
"He's open for us to figure out what we need of him," Eilert said as he got into what is meant by the Mountaineers looking for even more from him.
"We had a conversation about that yesterday. "He's very athletic. He can recover well on the defensive end but sometimes he can jump out of position because he's taking chances and bouncing side to side. He can certainly do more for us defensively; create more havoc by getting into the passing lanes."
His very presence on the floor gives WVU a chance to make better use of its other players, Eilert stressed.
"We can use him more as decoy from time to time. Teams are going to key heavily on him. He should be drawing their best defender each and every night which will open other guys up."
The focus of the offense has changed dramatically since Battle won his fight to get a transfer waiver for eligibility this year and since Edwards, who was the focus of everything the Mountaineers did offensively when Battle wasn't playing, was injured.
Putting him into the lineup wasn't disruptive.
"We planned on having Rae from Day 1, so everything we did had Rae in the plan," Eilert said. "We planned on running but we didn't have that type of player out on the floor when we had to start without him."
What wasn't planned was getting eligibility for Noah Farrakhan, who they believed was out for the season. As such, he was being used on the scout team through the first month of the season rather than working with the starters, as Battle did at times.
"Now, with Kerr, Rae and Noah on the floor, the biggest challenge has been to find out how we can have a better-balanced attack," Eilert said. "Our guard play is as good as anybody right now. We are trying to shore up now from an analytical standpoint how we can be effective as a team and try not to be so one-sided.
"Teams are going to key on RaeQuan. They are going to do everything they can to take him away. We have to do everything we can do to find some secondary options that get everybody else involved."
What Eilert is searching for right now is some easy shots, but he's doing it at the toughest time he could find, facing Houston and its prime-time defense.
"For us, our biggest thing top to bottom is shot selection," Eilert said. "We need to figure out how we can generate more uncontested shots. So many of our shots are really tough shots. Now RaeQuan can make really tough shots, Noah can make tough shots, but as a team, we have to find more uncontested shots.
"Like Houston generates 38 points a game on points off turnovers and second-chance points. We need to find out how we can get some easy buckets. We can't go into all these games thinking we are going to outscore people taking tough shots and shooting from half court night in and night out."
That is going to come from teamwork and spreading the scoring wealth more, secure in the knowledge that Battle will get his points.