WVU, UC End Season Today at 2
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MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia's 2023-24 regular season mercifully comes to an end Saturday as the Mountaineers travel to Cincinnati for a 2 p.m. game that will be shown on ESPN+ and there is really only one thing still at stake, although it won't make front page news anywhere across the country.
The Mountaineers can stay out of last place in the Big 12 with a victory and an Oklahoma State loss at BYU on Saturday. WVU enters the game with a 9-21 regular-season record and a 4-13 conference record. That has them tied with Oklahoma State for last place in the conference with one game remaining, but the Cowboys own the tiebreaker on a 70-66 victory in Stillwater on Jan. 27.
Would pulling it off be an accomplishment? No, but it is better to be 13th than 14th in a 14-team conference.
Other than that, WVU has to write this one off as a year that wasn't meant to be.
The year went by as if the basketball gods were out to punish West Virginia, setting up Josh Eilert, in his 17th year in the Mountaineer program but only one of them spent previously on the bench in a no-win situation.
Eilert accepted the job of interim coach after Bob Huggins indiscretions forced him out of the job and really, as things worked out, he had no chance as there were suspensions, law suits, injuries … if it could go bad, it went worse and if it couldn't bad, it still did.
Jesse Edwards was supposed to be the focal point inside and RaeQuan Battle outside, but Edwards broke a wrist and Battle wound up fighting in court just to play 20 games when the NCAA refused to grant him a waiver of the two-transfer rule.
After losing to TCU on Wednesday, Eilert thought about the year and how it progressed.
"It just happens so fast. It was a quick eight months with them at this point," Eilert began.
"Jesse, I'll never forget going over and seeing him play with his national team and getting to know him. RaeQuan, going to Washington and spending time with him on the reservation. Each of them, I've learned a lot from them, they've learned a lot from me," Eilert continued.
"At the end of the day, our record is going to say we're a failure, but we continue to battle and try to represent the state and these people the best way possible."
Edwards, of course, gave the home fans a vision what it was supposed to be the last time out in the TCU loss as he became only the fifth player in WVU history to score 36 points and grab off as many as 13 rebounds, the other four legends in their own right -- Jerry West, Hot Rod Hundley, Rod Thorn and Mark Workman.
Does Edwards have an encore in Cincinnati?
Could be, but Cincinnati is a well camouflaged team that is far better than its 6-11 league record shows … or even than its 17-13 overall record would indicate. Of the 13 losses, 9 were by 5 or fewer points.
And we're not talking about .500 less teams being scared by Cincinnati.
The Bearcats lost by 5 at Xavier, by 1 to Texas, by 3 at Baylor, by 4 in overtime to TCU, by 5 at Kansas, by 5 to Houston, by 3 to Big 12 regular-season champion Oklahoma and by just 4 when they met WVU at the Coliseum.
But Edwards might be able to put on a convincing facsimile of his TCU performance as in that game he became the first WVU player ever to have 25 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocks in a single game.
WVU's problem hasn't really been on the offensive end. They have shot 47.8% from the field over the last five games, losing four of them.
"Our defense has been an issue all year long and I feel like people shoot the ball really well against us and I don't think it's a coincidence," Eilert said.
All you need to know about the defense is that WVU has given up 500 points in the last 6 games, which is 83.3 points a game.