What Darian DeVries Said Following the Win Over Mercyhurst

West Virginia University head coach Darian DeVries gave his initial assessment of the Mountaineers' win against Mercyhurst.

West Virginia University head coach Darian DeVries. / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

The West Virginia Mountaineers (9-2) won their fifth consecutive game after handling the Mercyhurst Lakers (6-9) Sunday afternoon 67-46.

Head coach Darian DeVries met with the media following the game and gave his initial thoughts on the Mountaineers final game of the nonconference schedule.

Overall performance

That probably wasn’t our cleanest game by any means but the thing I did like the way we played tonight, I thought defensively, especially in the second half when we were struggling a little bit to get any type of rhythm offensively, our defense kept us in the game so that when we finally got a little burst, now we’re able to take a 10-point lead and stretch it out to up to 20. Sometimes that’s hard to do when you’re not scoring and you’re not getting anything from a flow standpoint is to still stay with that type of energy defensively. So, I was proud of the guys from that standpoint that we were able to guard for the full 40 minutes, especially that second half.

Sophomore starting forward Amani Hansberry injured within the first 20 seconds of the game and senior center Eduardo Andre taking the extra minutes

I thought he did good. They did a lot of switching – keeps you kind of out of some rhythm but I thought we were able to throw it in there some and he was able to make plays either for himself, got fouled a few times and then had a couple of nice assists on some kickouts.

Note: DeVries stated “Hansberry should be good”

Playing without three major contributors due to injuries to senior forward Tucker DeVries, senior guard Jayden Stone and Hansberry

We talk to guys all the time – ‘it’s the next man up. Have yourself ready. You never know when that opportunity is going to present itself. Like I said, hopefully Amani is not out for a long time but you feel like we have guys like (senior forward) Haris (Elezovic) tonight, they’re able to come in and give us production and good minutes.