Mountaineers Now Postgame Show: SMU Defeats West Virginia
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello everybody and welcome into
00:11 the Mountaineers Now post game show.
00:12 And we are here to break down West Virginia and SMU.
00:16 The first game of the Fort Myers tip-off,
00:19 SMU coming away winners in this one 70 to 58.
00:23 I'm Skylar Cowling, that is Christopher Hall
00:25 and this game, post game show is brought to you
00:28 by Country Roads Air Duct Cleaning.
00:30 Take me home to comfort.
00:31 And with that, let's take a look here
00:33 at some of the numbers.
00:34 Jesse Edwards led the Mountaineers with 18 points
00:38 and nine rebounds.
00:39 He also had three blocks on the night.
00:40 Quince Lozinski got off to a fast start,
00:43 but kind of fizzled out there as the game went on.
00:45 He ended up going for 13 points and three assists
00:48 on five of 13 from the field.
00:50 And then for SMU, it was Zurich Phelps,
00:53 17 points on eight of 20 shooting,
00:56 one of seven from three, but he did add 12 rebounds.
00:59 How about that a guard getting 12 rebounds in this game.
01:03 And then for the team statistics,
01:05 West Virginia got to the line a heck of a lot more than SMU,
01:08 but didn't really cash in.
01:09 They went 61% from the free throw line going 13 of 21.
01:14 And they did win the rebounding edge 39 to 33.
01:18 But the biggest difference,
01:20 and I think maybe one of the biggest factors
01:22 of this game was the turnovers.
01:24 West Virginia, 16 turnovers, Chris.
01:26 I mean, this is something that we kind of pointed out
01:28 as kind of a little bit of a surprise
01:30 in the first couple of games,
01:31 even against lesser competition,
01:32 that they were doing a pretty good job
01:35 of taking care of the basketball.
01:36 For a team that hadn't played a lot together,
01:38 a team that was very thin on depth
01:41 in terms of their depth,
01:42 they were doing a good job keeping it under double digits.
01:46 Not so much tonight.
01:47 - Yeah, and some of it's just trying to force things.
01:51 I think a lot of them,
01:53 I think most of them did come in the first half.
01:56 I believe they had 10 in the first half.
01:59 And a lot of them were just silly mistakes,
02:01 but you can take those mistakes
02:03 when they were scoring the way they were,
02:04 they were moving the ball well,
02:05 they were feeding Jesse underneath.
02:08 We'd like to see Quinn get more involved.
02:10 I think he had eight points there
02:11 in the first three minutes.
02:13 But you gotta credit SMU.
02:15 They knew West Virginia going into the game,
02:17 had seven scholarship players.
02:19 So from the start of the game, they just sped them up.
02:22 Don't know really what you can do if you're Isler.
02:25 They work on it, but how much can you practice
02:27 full court press with a short roster like that?
02:30 So they're struggling.
02:32 They obviously don't have a true point guard.
02:35 Then they got Kobe and Seth bringing up the ball.
02:38 I thought they schemed it well to get it inbounds,
02:40 but they obviously had trouble a few times
02:42 getting it inbounds.
02:43 And that's just kind of where West Virginia is right now.
02:45 They're just really shorthanded
02:47 and they managed the 11 point lead.
02:51 But I mean, if you didn't know, you should have known.
02:53 Like it was common.
02:54 You could tell they were tired early in the first half
02:57 for how much they had to run up and down the floor.
02:59 I think something that they may have to look into really,
03:02 'cause West Virginia was getting open looks
03:04 in the transition.
03:05 They were beating SMU down the floor,
03:07 but at what cost at the end of the day?
03:09 I mean, they were just beat.
03:11 I mean, you could tell they were beat
03:12 in the end of the first half,
03:15 which they could, I think they only had one timeout
03:18 in the final 12 minutes.
03:19 So really it just came down to fatigue.
03:22 Take care of the ball better in the first half.
03:26 Maybe you can get a little bit larger advantage
03:28 and kind of get them out of the game,
03:30 but that's an SMU squad that, you know,
03:32 they've been a pretty decent program
03:34 over the last decade or so.
03:36 And I was scared to go up against someone like West Virginia
03:40 and that's a talented team.
03:41 I think they took A&M to the final moments.
03:45 I think it was six days ago.
03:46 So it's not a bad loss, but it's a frustrating loss
03:50 because you see the potential of this team.
03:52 I mean, they went up 11 at half.
03:55 The top end talent's great.
03:56 Edwards, Zinzke, absolutely phenomenal.
03:59 But when you can't get those guys rest
04:03 and you can't get your guard rest,
04:04 you see a lot of standing around second half,
04:06 a lot of short shots, a lot of overcompensating
04:08 because they're tired,
04:09 and just second half was just bad all around.
04:13 So, yeah, NCAA, get on your crap.
04:17 Get Raekwon Battle on this dang team and allow him to play.
04:21 I mean, we've seen a couple of guys get their waiver.
04:26 What's the word I'm looking for?
04:31 Approved that for two-time transfers.
04:34 Actually, a couple of them went through today.
04:38 So who knows?
04:39 I mean, I think at some point,
04:41 obviously within probably the next couple of weeks,
04:43 we'll hear something in terms of what that decision
04:46 will be from the NCAA,
04:47 but I don't know how much of a difference.
04:50 I mean, it's going to make a difference
04:51 if Raekwon is able to play, for sure.
04:53 It gives him another body, number one,
04:56 and number two, it gives him a very good quality player
04:59 that's going to be in the starting lineup.
05:01 So it's definitely going to help,
05:03 but is it something that was going to get this team
05:06 to an NCAA tournament bid?
05:07 I don't know about that.
05:09 That's a far stretch,
05:10 especially with how many other holes
05:12 that this team really has,
05:14 particularly in the front court
05:15 behind Jesse Edwards is really nobody.
05:18 But back to this game, West Virginia's up 36-25 at the half,
05:24 and then they get outscored in the second half, 45-22.
05:28 We talked a lot about the depth and the fatigue,
05:30 all that stuff,
05:32 but where do you feel like that fatigue really set in?
05:35 Was it the defensive end and the transition,
05:38 or was it so much even more on the offense
05:41 and just not having their legs underneath them on their shots?
05:44 I would like to blame transition on fatigue.
05:48 They haven't guarded transition very well all year.
05:50 They struggled even at the beginning of the game.
05:54 Really, it's so simple that SMU hit some tough shots.
05:59 When you see one guy hit tough shots, other ones do.
06:02 Ricardo Wright had the best game of his career,
06:07 probably, but definitely the best game of his season.
06:09 He went 4-4 in the second half from three-point range,
06:12 and they just kind of -- credit to SMU.
06:15 They figured out the 2-3 zone a little bit,
06:18 and when you kind of figure out the 2-3 zone,
06:20 you can shoot over top of it and get open looks,
06:23 and, yep, some of that was fatigue,
06:24 where they just couldn't get over quick enough,
06:26 but they were hitting shots, and West Virginia
06:30 just couldn't kind of adjust
06:31 to what SMU was doing defensively.
06:34 They hit them with the zone as well,
06:35 and you saw a lot of guys standing around,
06:39 and I think Jesse Edward, he had five turnovers,
06:42 and some of those were just SMU crashing down on him.
06:45 When he sees it, he's got to recognize it
06:47 and just kind of touch pass it to a guard on the outside.
06:50 I mean, one of those turnovers --
06:52 Oh, actually, I think they called a foul.
06:53 Four SMU players crashed down on him,
06:56 so that leaves a lot of guys open along the perimeter.
07:00 Still some of the same struggles you saw at the beginning,
07:02 even with lesser competition.
07:04 The guards aren't --
07:06 I don't feel like they're doing a good enough job
07:07 getting open off the ball.
07:09 There's just a lot of standing around along the perimeter,
07:12 so when Jesse gets the ball, you can cut towards the paint.
07:15 They're going to have to keep on this,
07:17 but if you're just standing outside
07:19 and they crash down quick enough,
07:20 and if Jesse, his first instinct is to turn to shoot,
07:24 again, some of it's a tough ask, but if you notice it,
07:28 you just got to try to get it out as quick as you can,
07:30 so there's some adjustment, but so much of it,
07:33 to me, this game right here just chops up the fatigue
07:35 because you can't make anything.
07:37 They shot 25% in the second half.
07:40 Saw less driving to the basket and more settling for shots,
07:43 and, again, I just think they were so tired,
07:45 and it's a shame because, again,
07:48 you just have such good players in that starting lineup
07:50 that can all score, and when they've got legs,
07:54 they sure they can score.
07:55 They sure they can get open,
07:56 so I think we're just going to have to kind of suck this up.
07:59 It's painful to watch, especially these kids
08:01 that are playing hard.
08:04 They played hard, really, that whole game,
08:05 and, I mean, what can you do when they're playing 34 and 36,
08:09 34, you know, 33, 31 minutes?
08:11 I mean, what else can you do?
08:13 I know we talked about Ikuku,
08:14 but, you know, it's hard to imagine him coming back,
08:17 so even getting maybe, you know,
08:19 you know you're getting Karissa back in, what, five more games?
08:23 You guys have five more games?
08:26 So, after that, maybe you get a battle,
08:28 but, like you said, it doesn't help your front court at all,
08:32 assuming that's still a liability on defense,
08:34 and he did get a bucket driving to the paint,
08:36 but he was also going away from the basket.
08:39 He's not, you know, he's definitely still a big project
08:44 if he wanted to play significant minutes,
08:46 but I don't know what else you can do at this point.
08:49 Yeah, and I think that's really the frustrating thing
08:51 probably for Josh Eilert is, I mean, he sees that,
08:54 you know, this team's probably going to be a theme
08:56 where you're going to see West Virginia play
08:58 extremely well in the first half,
08:59 maybe the first 25, 30 minutes of the game,
09:02 and then it's going to get to that point
09:04 where hands are going on heads or on their knees,
09:07 and it's just a lot of fatigue setting in,
09:09 and that's the frustrating part because you can see
09:12 that the core of this team is good enough
09:14 to win a bunch of games,
09:15 but you need a couple of extra bodies just to get some rest,
09:20 and you're just not going to be able to have that,
09:23 and you also, too, have to think,
09:25 like, these guys that are in the starting lineup,
09:27 outside of Quince Slozinski and Jesse,
09:31 I mean, these are guys that are relatively inexperienced
09:35 at the college level,
09:37 and, you know, the way I kind of look at it
09:39 is look at Keedy Johnson, right?
09:41 When he first came in, he did a really good job
09:44 kind of in his role and kind of took a backseat.
09:48 He kind of sat there for a year,
09:49 didn't really have much of a role,
09:51 stepped into more of a role in year two,
09:53 and then by year three, he was really a complete player,
09:58 and that just kind of shows you,
09:59 and that was a kid that had junior college experience.
10:02 I mean, we're talking about a kid that they plucked
10:03 from Israel over the summer is in the starting five,
10:07 so if it took a kid that played some junior college ball
10:09 and was one of the leading scores
10:11 in the nation at that level,
10:12 if it took him three years to kind of completely get going,
10:15 just imagine what it's like for some of these other guys
10:17 in this roster, like a Josiah Harris,
10:19 who, again, really didn't play a whole lot last year,
10:23 but Kobe Johnson, you know, didn't play a whole lot.
10:27 Seth Wilson was more of in a specialized role,
10:29 so that's a really tough deal, I think, for this team
10:33 is that they're relying on Jesse Edwards
10:36 and Quince Lozinski to kind of carry them every night.
10:38 They need a third person to emerge.
10:41 I don't know if that person's going to emerge
10:42 until Kirk Creasa comes back.
10:45 Yeah, and you'd like to see a better game from Seth Wilson.
10:50 He just hasn't been that reliable scorer.
10:52 He hasn't really been able to score off the bounce.
10:53 He hits a couple buckets here and there,
10:55 but they really need more production out of him.
10:58 I think, you know, so early in his career,
10:59 you're asking him maybe to do too much.
11:02 He doesn't really, you know,
11:03 we've seen little guys be able to score,
11:05 drive into the basket.
11:06 He can at times, again, but need to find some consistency.
11:11 He plays a little out of control at times.
11:14 Kobe's not -- I know he had 19 points previous game,
11:17 but he's not going to be that option for you,
11:19 so, yeah, maybe when Kirk gets back,
11:21 but again, I think we're going to beat this to the worst.
11:24 You just have no help in the front court getting 36 minutes.
11:28 I think Jesse played -- if he didn't,
11:31 he played pretty close to all 20 minutes
11:34 in the second half, just checking here.
11:37 Of course, he can't play.
11:41 Yeah, he played all 20 minutes in the second half.
11:43 Seth Wilson played 19.
11:44 Quinn played 18, so.
11:46 I don't think people realize how difficult that is.
11:48 That's extremely difficult,
11:50 and as hard as they were playing in that first half,
11:52 I mean, they were gassed.
11:53 They were just gassed by halftime,
11:55 so you can see it coming.
11:57 I think this is kind of going to be the storyline
11:58 for probably most of the season.
12:01 Again, SMU's a good team, but they're not going to be big --
12:03 they're not big 12 teams,
12:04 so it's only going to get even harder.
12:07 So I don't really know what you do with it.
12:09 I mean, if you're out, what do you do?
12:11 I guess their only, I think, option to save legs
12:15 is do not run out in transition.
12:17 Just set play halfway. Slow it down.
12:19 I mean, you can't just continue to run.
12:22 I know it's hard because these kids are getting books,
12:26 but when it comes second half and you're kind of just forced
12:29 because you're so tired to play half court,
12:32 they're just settling for shots
12:34 because they just don't have the legs,
12:35 and then they don't have the legs to get it up over the rim.
12:38 It's just pick your poison, I guess, and hope for the best.
12:42 I mean, at least you think you have a little bit of a match-up
12:45 tomorrow night that it'll kind of cater
12:47 to the depth issues and the fatigue
12:50 because Virginia's going to slow it down.
12:52 They're going to play defense.
12:54 They're going to go in their half-court sets,
12:56 and they're really not a team
12:58 that likes to push the ball in transition
12:59 and get up and down the floor.
13:01 So this is probably, even though Virginia's a very good team,
13:04 they're ranked 24th in the country,
13:06 but this is probably a really good opportunity
13:08 for them to kind of bounce back.
13:09 Like Josh Howlett said, I think, last week,
13:12 he would be more concerned if they had to play Virginia
13:14 or Wisconsin first and then have SMU,
13:17 the very next day, but, I mean, who knows?
13:21 I think if you somehow come away with a win here,
13:25 I mean, it's hard to think that they do,
13:27 but if they do come away with a win against Virginia
13:31 and you go one-on-one in Fort Myers,
13:33 you have to be elated with that result,
13:36 again, considering the depth issues that they have,
13:38 and then you've got a few days to rest here
13:39 before you come back home and play Bellarmine.
13:41 So going one-on-one's great,
13:45 even if you compete in this game against Virginia.
13:47 I know it sounds like we're having
13:50 that defeatist kind of talk here,
13:52 but, I mean, even if you compete in this game against Virginia,
13:56 that's got to be somewhat of a confidence boost.
13:59 Yeah, again, I don't know how they're going to play
14:00 a team like Virginia.
14:02 They're going to make you work so hard
14:04 to get open off the ball.
14:05 That is true. That is a good point.
14:07 It's going to be a battle.
14:09 They had a rough shooting night.
14:11 See if that carries over to Wednesday.
14:15 I don't even know what else to say.
14:20 It's a hard watch because you can see so much potential,
14:25 but it's just, what do you do?
14:27 I mean, I don't know what answers
14:30 they could possibly come up with at this point
14:32 other than just completely walking the ball
14:34 up the floor every time and just running a good play
14:38 for a good 10 seconds,
14:41 and hopefully you can stop the ball
14:44 and keep the other team from running.
14:45 I mean, every team is going to full-court press them,
14:50 at least play full-court man.
14:51 He'd be crazy not to.
14:53 Just to make them work the ball up
14:55 and speed them up on the offensive end.
14:58 See if Virginia does that.
14:59 It'll be interesting to see if they kind of apply
15:01 some at least three-quarter court pressure.
15:04 Yeah, I mean, even if your team isn't used to doing that
15:07 or maybe not necessarily comfortable doing it,
15:09 I mean, why not?
15:10 I mean, it's going to tire this team out.
15:14 But, yeah, I mean, this is going to be a game
15:16 where it might be the first to 40 or 45 to win.
15:19 I mean, I don't think you can set this total low enough.
15:22 I mean, is it going to get over 100?
15:25 I mean -- I mean, Virginia and Mike,
15:26 there's a good chance they're going to get really good looks
15:28 in the second half, so I wouldn't --
15:33 if you're trying to bet on this team, I would stay away.
15:36 [Laughs]
15:38 I mean, I've been living with the unders, so --
15:41 And it's Corgan.
15:44 So West Virginia and Virginia,
15:47 they'll take on each other tomorrow at 6 o'clock
15:50 in the Constellation game here at the Fort Myers tip-off.
15:53 We'll have the coverage for you here on "Mountaineers Now,"
15:55 and we'll have the post-game show following the action,
15:59 and you can catch that on YouTube at "Mountaineers Now,"
16:02 and you can subscribe there.
16:04 Follow us on X at the same handle,
16:07 and that'll do it for us here tonight.
16:09 So thank you guys for watching.
16:10 For Christopher Hall, I'm Skylar Callin.
16:12 You've been watching the "Mountaineers Now"
16:13 post-game show presented by Country Roads Air Duct Cleaning.
16:16 Take me home to comfort.
16:18 We'll see you guys back here tomorrow night.
16:21 ♪♪