What West Virginia's head coach said of Gonzaga prior to Battle 4 Atlantis matchup

The Mountaineers and Bulldogs tip off the Battle 4 Atlantis event on Wednesday

West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries. / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

Darian DeVries' focal points for his West Virginia Mountaineers this past week in preparation for the Battle 4 Atlantis were simple: Limit turnovers on offense, share the ball and most importantly, continue to be physical on the defense end, especially with regard to rebounding. It's not a coincident those are same area of the game their first round opponent, No. 3 Gonzaga, has excelled at thus far into the 2024-25 season.

The Bulldogs (5-0) tip off the multi-team event from The Bahamas on Wednesday ranked No. 1 in adjusted offensive efficiency (125.4) while boasting the lowest turnover rate (11.2%) in the country as well, according to KenPom.com. With senior guard Ryan Nembhard (12.2 points, 9.4 assists) at the helm, Gonzaga is second in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio at (2.38) and commits the second-fewest turnovers per game (8.0) as well.

DeVries probably doesn't need to look at all the numbers to know how the Zags tick. He's gone through tape study on Mark Few's team once before as an assistant coach at Creighton back in 2017, when the Bluejays visited Spokane for a matchup against the Bulldogs at the McCarthey Athletic Center. To DeVries, the 2024-25 Bulldogs run very similar to the 2017-18 team that beat his Creighton squad, 91-74, in The Kennel that season.

While his team is scheduled to play three games in three days down in Paradise Island, DeVries is locked in on making sure his Mountaineers don't endure the same fate his Bluejays once did.

"My entire focus is on Gonzaga," DeVries said on Tuesday. "Since we did have a week to practice, we looked at all of the opponents and just said, 'Is there something maybe unique out there that we need to prepare for, for a day in practice? Since we had multiple days to prepare, just to make sure, because you don't get any practice time in between games unlike a conference tournament where you would have already seen everybody once or twice, so you kind of have an identity there. But outside of that the whole focus has been preparing for Gonzaga and getting ourselves in the best position possible."

Here's more from West Virginia's head coach ahead of Wednesday's matchup with Gonzaga.

On the keys to slowing down Gonzaga's fast pace on offense:

"Yeah they are incredibly fast. And we certainly haven't played anybody with this type of speed. They're very, very good in transition. They're elite at it. They play to it every single game. That's a huge challenge as to, how do you try to slow them down? And I think the biggest thing is making sure you have to take care of the basketball number one, and then making sure you're getting good shot selection, so that you're not playing in transition all the time."

On the challenges of defending Gonzaga's perimeter players:

"I think that's what makes their team so challenging to try to defend. They have a great interior presence, and then they also have great skill and efficiency out on the perimeter. They share the ball well, they move the ball well, so they can really try to take advantage of you in multiple different ways, whether it be on the interior or shooting 3s. So it does present challenges in that regard. So you got to be really sound on what you're doing defensively."

On how West Virginia can challenge the Zags:

"We have to make them earn everything they get. It's more about from our side of things, as we presented, taking care of the basketball. If you can take care of the basketball, make sure you're getting good shot selection, the shots we want to take on the offensive end. And then defensively making sure we're just being aggressive and playing to what our identity is and as much as we can, try to dictate on the half court defensively what we want them to try to take and instead of allowing them to play free and play with free movement and get the ball where they want to get to, because they're just so good when they get into a rhythm."

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