What Josh Eilert Said Following the Loss to Radford

The West Virginia Mountaineers (4-7) fell to the Radford Highlanders (10-4) Wednesday night 66-65.

Team + Individual Stats vs. Radford

Opening Statement

Unfortunate ending to a heck of a battle. I continue to tell these guys if we don't rebound, we're not going to win. We were minus eight in that category and gave up 12 offensive rebounds and those are things we could fix. We can fix that with effort, attitude, and a little bit of want to. We got to shore that up if we're going to be a good team but more anything you know, we will look back to the film and every time we really shared the ball, got an extra pass, got the thing moving, we got good luck, but we got to be more of a balanced attack and try to figure out how we build the chemistry amongst all the changes. We continue to battle changes each and every night. A lot of the offense went through Jesse. Now we don't have Jesse in the lineup. So, we’re trying to figure out our new identity offensively and it will come with some time - not that that's an excuse, but that's where we're at right now trying to figure out that identity and that chemistry that is going to make us good in the end.

RaeQuan Battle's 29-point Mountaineer Debut

Tried to get him going early. He struggled to make shots and I worried about that considering he's still trying to gain his strength and his stamina back. He doesn't have his game legs under him yet because his first game and he was down 13 pounds just a couple of days ago. I saw it in practice leading up to it, he just wasn't 100% RaeQuan yet.

He forced a couple I think he would admit that but he's a special dynamic player and we're going to need him, and we'll just need to be more of a balanced attack, moving forward and everybody on the floor got to share it and get the really good shot, not the forced shot which we've continued to do over and over. We've forced a lot of things over the course of 10 games, 11 games.

Coaching against former Mountaineer and Radford head coach Darris Nichols

A couple of times you look down there and it's kind of surreal because we go back a long time and watched him navigate as the point guard into the Sweet 16 for us that first year here. That was a special year for me, special year for him and all those guys. We even built a bigger, greater relationship when we brought him back as a GA and I kind of mentored him through all the scouting process and we got really close that year. We've continued to be really good friends and he's one of those guys that it's genuine. It's genuine, you know, you got someone in your corner that would go to bat for you and when things are down you know he's going to be calling. I’m happy for Darris. He's a good coach and they got things rolling. And I respect him and what he's doing there and it's hard to lose but I guess if you’re going lose to a good friend. I guess it makes a little bit better.

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