What Josh Eilert Said Following the Win Over Toledo

West Virginia University head coach Josh Eilert Toledo postgame quick hits

The West Virginia Mountaineers (5-7) defeated the Toledo Rockets (6-6) Saturday afternoon 91-81.

Team + Individual Stats vs. Toledo

Opening Statement

First of all, I'd like to thank the Mountaineer nation. Looking at the box score 10,693 on a family day on Saturday afternoon a couple days before Christmas, it's great to feel that support. We haven't given them a lot to hang on to but they back us continuing to back us and shout out to our fans for showing up and helping us get that win. We feed off that energy. We'll be back here for conference play and students will be back and I'm excited to get that place rockin’ again.

After the game met with the guys and the first thing that I said is, everybody gave them a standing ovation, we finally outrebounded someone. We were plus one on the glass, so big credit to Akok Akok there, especially in second half really shoring up some of that rebounding issues that we were having, especially with the lack of size that we got on the floor, so that was a good win for us.

We certainly was concerned about fast breakpoints and defensive transition and they really did a good job going downhill, put pressure on the rim and finding their isolations where we had a hard time you defending in those isolations with those size between Cochran Simmons but they had a good game plan and we came out hot and wish we could have kind of extended that lead but we found a way to win.

Offense’s chemistry

It's one thing to practice together every day and try to learn off each other but until we get in game scenarios and get those guys that the right run together it not the same in practice. So yeah, I felt like they played more cohesive tonight on the offensive end and we're more of a balanced attack than we were the other night and just had more patience. I continue to tell them we you know, we run a lot of sets but there's first action, second action and then we always have continuity to fall back on that maybe we didn't really fall back on at the Radford game. We kind of were more patient, fell back on some of that continuity today. (senior guard) Kerr (Kriisa) did a great job with double double 12 [points] and 10 assists. He's got to be that floor general every night and we also need him to score. Three from six from three. So, I like I like those numbers.

Team schedule over the Holidays

This game is always from a coaching to respect perspective a hard game because you can't keep them locked in. Sometimes they're one foot out the door because they can't wait to see Mom and Dad and I understand that. So, I was glad that we scheduled at one o'clock game so those guys can get out. It's a long season that never feels like it ever stops like even through the summer and everything else. So, it's huge for these guys to taste the victory and get three and a half days off going into Christmas. They'll be off tomorrow, Christmas and the 26th then we'll come back on the 27th in the afternoon and practice and start getting ready for Ohio State

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