Toussaint Discusses Decision to Leave WVU & Playing Against the Mountaineers

Joe Toussaint talks about his return to West Virginia.

Nearly eight minutes into Saturday evening's game, the West Virginia Mountaineers had a strong hold of the game jumping out to a 20-4 lead on the Texas Tech Red Raiders. 

Tech missed several open shots while the Mountaineers were filling it up on the opposite end of the floor. For a minute, it looked like Tech would be well on their way to adding a major stain to their NCAA Tournament resume. But former Mountaineer Joe Toussaint wasn't going to let that happen. He got up into the face of some of his teammates on a couple of occasions throughout the first half to get them to lock in defensively and by the time the second half rolled around, the message sunk in. Texas Tech allowed just 25 points in the final 20 minutes of the game and went on to win the game comfortably, 81-70.

Toussaint led Texas Tech in scoring with 21 points to go along with seven assists and three steals.

Following the game, Toussaint met with the media and spoke about coming in and facing his former team and the emotions that come with it.

"I wasn't really thinking about it like that. It was just another game on the east coast. I was just happy my family came to see me. As you guys know, New York is like five and a half (hours) away, so I was happy to have my dad and my brothers came to support me. It's all respect to the coaches on that side. I respect them 100%. I'm happy for them and happy for what they're doing. I respect it."

Toussaint was also asked about his departure from the program, following everything that transpired last summer.

"It was weird. A lot of things were going on. Me and my family didn't know what was going on honestly and we just thought our best bet was to hit the transfer portal and see what we could get. Thank God Grant (McCasland) and his coaching staff, they reached out to me first and I ended up going to Tech."

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