2024-01-09 06:08:34
West Virginia guard Kobe Johnson, center, is pressured by Houston forward Ja’Vier Francis (5) and guard Damian Dunn during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday Jan. 6, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith)
MORGANTOWN – What West Virginia basketball coach Josh Eilert is looking for now with his ever-evolving Mountaineers is a shortcut that doesn’t exist to having chemistry on the floor.
Oddly, if one wants to look at an slogan from a company to capture the essence of what he is saying, one would turn to the Dupont Company, who in its early years spoke of “Better things for better living through chemistry.”
The slogan over the years was whittled down to “Better living through chemistry” and that, really, is Eilert’s ultimate goal with this 2023-24 basketball team that has spent its entire existence adding a player here, losing one there, bringing one in through the transfer pool while another was traveling in the opposite direction through the same portal.
Chemistry comes through two things in sports or business. It takes time and continuity, and Eilert has had neither since he was named interim coach replacing Bob Huggins.
It is interesting to note, however, that the WVU basketball team and Dupont are similar in one respect. The Mountaineers are a team that is explosive on the court while Dupont, out of Wilmington, Del., was the world’s largest supplier of TNT in its early days, producing more than one billion pounds of TNT in its first 35 years.
The ability to develop chemistry on the teams has faced obstacle after obstacle and the latest game, that 89-55 debacle at No. 3 Houston threatens to blow up the little chemistry they have been able to build up to date.
Eilert knows that and used this approach with his team, which welcomes Kansas State to the Coliseum at 7 p.m. on Tuesday night, in preparing for that game.
“I told the guys this league can eat you alive if you hold on to things,” Eilert said. “This league is a bear and you got to flush it and figure out what you can do to improve and turn the page because it is going to be battle after battle after battle.
Eilert noted that this is a different age with the trafficking of players from one team and one league to the next in college basketball, but normally you have your team when you arrive for preseason practice and can work on not plays but formulas for success.
You build a bond, a brotherhood, and while traditionally there were some freshmen coming in and maybe a transfer or two, this year the Mountaineers had a new coach and only four holdover players, none of them starters from a season ago.
They lined up a number of transfers but the NCAA’s rules challenged their eligibility and it wasn’t until the 10th game when they got three of them back … while losing their key big man in Jesse Edwards.
“It’s not lost on me,” Eilert said. “I knew chemistry would be a problem. It’s something we’re working through each day.”
Even the day in Houston when the roof caved in on them.
“We took a heck of a loss in Houston to a really good team,” Eilert said.
It was the kind of thing that can rip a team apart, but Eilert wants to be sure that doesn’t happen.
“We can’t lose sight of each other, lose faith in each other,” he said. “We have to pick ourselves up, put our boots on and go to work.”
This Kansas State team both last year and this year under Jerome Tang has done it with transfers and freshmen, but without the chaos Eilert had to go through with his roster building. It stands 11-3 coming into the game and has had enough chemistry to escape four overtime games with victories … and not against pushovers.
They beat Oral Roberts, 88-78, Big East teams Providence, 73-70, and Villanova, 72-71, then LSU, 75-60.
It was almost as if they were getting overtime with their NIL agreements.
“He put together a lot of talent last year and is doing the same thing this year,” Eilert said of Tang. “This is not as strong a team as last year but it is really resilient.”
The game can be seen on ESPN+.
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