Between The Eers: Is This the Turning Point?
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 Is this the turning point for West Virginia basketball?
00:15 It might just be.
00:16 I'm Scott Cowan, this is another episode of Between the Ears.
00:19 We thank you guys for tuning in.
00:21 Here on this fine Wednesday morning, or Tuesday morning, if you will.
00:28 West Virginia coming off a big win over number 25 Texas.
00:33 Snapping their losing skid, getting their first big 12 win.
00:37 Josh Shiler getting his first top 25 win.
00:42 And for a second, we can pretend or
00:47 maybe think that this thing is gonna turn.
00:52 And this is a part of the schedule where I've kind of looked at for a while.
00:58 Now it's at 12 West Virginia can get through those first handful of
01:04 games in the big 12.
01:05 That's where they can really start to gain some ground.
01:10 Here after this week, that is.
01:14 But first, let's start with the Texas win.
01:19 For the first time in quite a while,
01:23 West Virginia looked really good on
01:28 the offensive end of the ball.
01:33 Or of the floor, I should say, I'm still stuck in football mode here.
01:39 Where they were actually running some sets.
01:42 They weren't just standing there looking like a stagnant offense.
01:48 They were swinging the ball, moving it.
01:51 Didn't have a ton of assist, but you could tell a difference.
01:57 And I don't know if that's something that just is starting to come together now.
02:07 That these guys have played for a few games with each other.
02:11 And you're starting to get that chemistry and
02:14 that knowledge of what each other is going to do on the floor at any given time.
02:20 But that was the best the offense looked, and I don't even think it's close.
02:27 West Virginia's failed to score over 70 points all but
02:32 a handful of times this season.
02:35 And to do that against Texas, it's pretty impressive.
02:41 But I also wanna note that the defensive end was much better.
02:45 I mean, he gave up 73, but it's a whole lot better than giving up 89.
02:51 So I think there's some things there that you can build on.
02:56 I think that at times, whenever things get a little rough,
03:01 they can go into that two, three zone.
03:04 Of course, unless the other team is just shooting the ball like crazy and
03:09 shooting the lights out of the gym.
03:11 But I think there's some different things that they can do defensively,
03:16 that they can go to.
03:17 Because early in the season, they had to go to that two, three zone.
03:21 They had no choice.
03:22 They had no depth.
03:24 They had no really ability to go to anything but a two, three.
03:31 And now that they've got some guys back, they've gone to man.
03:34 But now that they can fall into that two, three,
03:37 they can play some pack line defense at times.
03:39 They have options.
03:42 And for really the first time this whole entire season,
03:46 Josh Eilert has options on both ends of the floor.
03:49 So this is gonna start to look like a little bit more of a desirable product.
03:58 And that's why I think when you look at this upcoming schedule,
04:03 this is a really, really interesting game coming up here Wednesday.
04:09 Oklahoma's lost two straight.
04:11 They've lost TCU by nine, and then they lost to Kansas,
04:17 which no one's gonna fault you for losing to Kansas.
04:21 And TCU's not that bad either.
04:23 But this is an Oklahoma team that maybe be overlooking West Virginia.
04:34 You've lost two straight, you think you got one in your back pocket and
04:38 you can get back on track.
04:39 But I don't know.
04:44 There's some games that I just, even though it doesn't make sense
04:50 that West Virginia should win, I think that this is one of them where
04:55 I think they can actually win this game.
04:57 And the same could be said for Saturday against Kansas.
05:02 Call me crazy.
05:02 I understand it.
05:04 And we may look back at this episode in a week and West Virginia goes 0-2 and
05:09 you're probably thinking what the hell was he thinking?
05:11 But I don't know.
05:14 I like their chances because you found some confidence now
05:20 in your lineup with Pat Sumnick.
05:21 He's starting to find himself.
05:23 Kirk Crease is playing much better.
05:27 Raekwon Battle is starting to have to not do everything now.
05:31 He can kind of step back and be more of a complete player.
05:34 Your bench can give you better minutes.
05:38 I just think this team is starting to gel a little bit.
05:42 And Wednesday, well actually today by the way,
05:48 marks the one month period for
05:53 Jesse Edwards since he's been out, or at least I should say since the injury.
06:00 I would say probably Wednesday or
06:02 Thursday would be the one month mark from his surgery.
06:06 So it was expected to be a four week recovery, right about at that four week
06:13 mark, but it sounds like they're probably about a week or so behind on that.
06:19 But that's not alarming by any means.
06:22 They're just making very clear that they're not gonna throw him out there until
06:29 he's 1,000% ready to go, and they should.
06:33 But if they can, they don't have to win these next two games.
06:40 It's not like they absolutely have to win these next two.
06:44 If they can just win one of them.
06:45 All right, you look at the three games following that.
06:49 Very, very winnable games.
06:55 UCF, Oklahoma State, Cincinnati, two of those three are on the road, but
07:01 it's not like you're shaking in your boots about going to Orlando or
07:06 going to Stillwater against a team that's now eight and eight on the year.
07:11 The schedule starts to get a little easier.
07:15 I mean, it is the Big 12, so any given night, you're gonna have challenges.
07:20 But it's not what they've gone through here in these first four or
07:25 five games in the Big 12 where they've had to play Houston, Texas,
07:30 Kansas State, Oklahoma, Kansas, it's gonna get a little lighter.
07:35 But the point of my episode today is not just
07:42 identifying a possibility of things getting turned now.
07:48 It's more so looking deep into the future and
07:52 looking into March, because let's be honest,
07:55 even if West Virginia wins both of these games against Oklahoma and against Kansas,
08:02 it's still gonna be a miracle to get all the way back into a position
08:08 where you can feel good about receiving an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament.
08:15 I mean, you're six and ten, two wins,
08:20 even against these two opponents, puts you at eight and ten.
08:24 You're still way behind the eight ball.
08:26 And I don't know what it would take for them to get an at-large.
08:33 I mean, usually if you start getting around that 14,
08:39 15 loss markets, it's a very, very hairy situation.
08:46 So you're talking about razor thin margin here.
08:50 And I would be willing to argue that 14 or
08:54 15 losses is probably way too much for this team,
08:58 considering the losses that they had early in the year,
09:00 which the committee is probably gonna dock them for,
09:03 regardless of the fact that they didn't have their full complement of players.
09:10 So they're probably having to stick around that 12 to 13 range,
09:16 and that's just almost impossible,
09:20 especially with what we've already seen so far this year.
09:24 And that's not to say that I don't believe this thing can get turned and
09:29 they can start winning some games.
09:30 I mean, that's just, even West Virginia's best years,
09:33 they're not going 15 and three in conference play.
09:36 They're not going 16 and two in conference play.
09:38 And it sure as hell not gonna happen with this roster.
09:42 It's just not.
09:43 So you need this thing to really turn as soon as possible,
09:50 not to build your at-large possibilities.
09:55 Cuz like I said, I think that's out the window.
09:58 But you need to get to the Big 12 tournament with a legitimate chance
10:04 of making a run.
10:06 And to do that, you need to be a little bit higher up in the Big 12 standing.
10:11 But right now, you're really not in a bad position through three games.
10:15 At least you've gotta win.
10:17 You're not sitting here at 0 and 3 like you're Oklahoma State.
10:21 And you're in the same boat as a lot of these quote unquote really good teams.
10:25 Houston's 1 and 2.
10:27 Their only win is West Virginia.
10:29 Texas 1 and 2.
10:32 BYU 1 and 2.
10:33 Oklahoma 1 and 2.
10:35 So yeah, beating an Oklahoma or
10:39 beating a Kansas is gonna do a hell of a lot of good in terms of
10:44 the Big 12 standings.
10:46 And that's really what West Virginia fans wanna pay attention to right now.
10:50 Again, get the at-large bid status out of your mind.
10:56 It's not even worth thinking about.
11:03 The number one thing I would say for West Virginia is you wanna finish somewhere
11:08 realistically top 10, top 10 in the Big 12.
11:16 And if you can get Jesse Edwards back within the next, let's say two weeks.
11:24 If you get him back in the next two weeks,
11:26 I think that that is absolutely 100% possible.
11:30 Assuming they don't sustain any other major injuries along the way or
11:34 have any other sort of crazy setbacks or other situations that pop up.
11:40 Because I mean, this is Josh Eilert's luck and
11:43 as soon as you start to feel good about something, something goes wrong.
11:47 So let's just assume that nothing goes wrong and everybody stays healthy.
11:51 Top 10 is absolutely in play.
11:55 Oklahoma State, I think they'll get progressively better.
12:00 Mike Boynton, they do this almost every year where they really struggle at
12:04 the beginning, they get better as the year goes on.
12:06 But this team, in my opinion, is really gonna have a hard time figuring it out.
12:12 And I think you're gonna see some of these newcomers like a Cincinnati and
12:16 a UCF and perhaps maybe even BYU who have gotten off to good starts in non-con play.
12:22 They're gonna start to fall back down to earth here.
12:25 All right, and I think you could say maybe even the same thing for
12:29 Oklahoma who got off to a really good start.
12:33 You look at their non-con schedule and it's not like they have this amazing resume.
12:38 They just won a bunch of games early, got that ranking beside their name,
12:42 they kept winning and kept climbing up the rankings.
12:46 So getting in the top 10 is 100% possible.
12:51 And if you can get in the top 10, obviously you like your chances a little
12:56 bit better than if you finish 14th in the league.
12:58 And then you've got to climb out of the almost most impossible
13:02 situation to make a run in the big tournament Kansas City.
13:05 So that's what the focus should be on.
13:10 It shouldn't be about the at large,
13:12 it shouldn't be about building a resume because that doesn't matter.
13:18 It's about getting this thing turned as quickly as possible so
13:22 that you're putting yourself in a position to do damage in Kansas City.
13:28 And I'm not saying this as if, okay,
13:35 if West Virginia starts to turn things around and they make a run in Kansas City,
13:40 say they get to the Big 12 Championship game, they lose.
13:45 Well, if the record's around a 500 record or if they're over 500,
13:50 I'm telling you right now, it's gonna be hard as hell to leave them out.
13:55 Because the committee loves to take into effect what you most recently did,
14:03 and that's what sticks in their brain the most.
14:06 If you go into Kansas City and you make that big run and say you win,
14:10 I don't know, let's say seven,
14:16 eight games in the Big 12, it's gonna be hard to leave this team out.
14:22 It's really gonna be hard to leave this team out.
14:24 But I don't know, it's a tough situation.
14:32 I understand you gotta take this one game at a time, but being in my seat,
14:38 in the media, and you guys that are fans, we can all afford,
14:42 we can all look ahead into these things and kinda project.
14:46 But I think there's a legitimate chance here,
14:53 if they were to split one of these next two games.
14:56 Because you've gotta get some wins over these teams that are supposed to or
15:01 expected to finish in the top half of the Big 12.
15:04 And then you've also gotta take care of, obviously,
15:07 the teams that are supposed to finish in the bottom half.
15:10 I understand it's not rocket science.
15:13 I'm not breaking any news here with any of that stuff.
15:16 But this is a golden opportunity here for
15:22 West Virginia, because you look at Oklahoma, again, they're gonna be overlooking it.
15:27 I just have a really gut feeling about this.
15:29 I know West Virginia hasn't had a lot of success out in Norman in years past, but
15:33 you go out to Norman, you find a way to win.
15:36 All of a sudden, you've won two straight games,
15:38 both of which came against top 25 teams.
15:39 You come back home and you play Kansas on a Saturday evening, and
15:44 everybody and their brother in Morgantown is gonna be out at that game.
15:48 It's gonna be a raucous atmosphere for Kansas, as it always is.
15:55 And regardless of record, regardless of how the teams have played up to that point,
16:00 West Virginia's always had a chance, seemingly, against Kansas.
16:06 Like I mentioned last week on, I believe it was the post game show,
16:09 the year Jermaine Haley was a senior.
16:14 I can't remember who else was on that team that season, but
16:17 I think that was the year they didn't go to the tournament.
16:21 I think that was pre-Oscar Sheboy, I think.
16:27 But that year, you would have said there's no way in hell that they're gonna
16:34 beat Kansas, and what happened?
16:36 Jermaine Haley, game winner.
16:40 So I think it's possible they can sweep this week, and
16:46 if they sweep this week, you're sitting here at three and two in Big 12 play.
16:51 And you only need to, in my opinion, get to, let's say,
16:55 eight or seven or eight wins in the conference to finish in the top ten.
17:03 Like your chances.
17:04 So let me know what you think here in the YouTube comments.
17:09 What West Virginia needs to do to get inside the top ten of the Big 12
17:14 conference?
17:15 What do you think they need to do just on the floor?
17:19 What do they need to improve to get better, to put themselves in a position to
17:23 make a run when they get to Kansas City here in a couple of months?
17:28 So that'll do it for me here today.
17:30 On Between the Ears, I'm Skyler Callahan.
17:33 We thank you for joining in.
17:34 Make sure you hit that subscribe button on YouTube at Mountain Ears Now.
17:37 Give us a like and follow us on X at Mountain Ears Now as well.
17:42 This one's been fun.
17:43 We'll come back tomorrow with another episode.
17:45 [MUSIC]