Quick Hits: What Went Wrong vs. Pitt, Jonathan Powell Impressing, MTEs + More

Darian DeVries chats about the Mountaineers' recent loss and previews Iona.

West Virginia University guard Jonathan Powell / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

West Virginia men's head basketball coach Darian DeVries spoke with the media on Tuesday to give some insight as to why the Mountaineers fell flat in the Backyard Brawl, and also to shed some light on the road ahead.

What went wrong against Pitt

“I think there’s a lot that we could correct. There’s a lot of things that played out in that game that we weren’t anticipating. We thought we had a great week of practice and then the game didn’t play out the way any of us wanted it to. I thought offensively, we just didn’t run very good offense. We didn’t get very good shot selection from pretty much about everyone. And a lot of that was just our movement, our activity. Defensively, even though they were kind of scoring early we were actually doing some pretty good things. We were getting the type of shots we wanted them to take. As the game went on, that went away a little bit. We’re a good team when we’re really hooked up and we’re connected and playing together on both ends of the floor, but our margin for error is pretty thin. When we’re not scoring it well, we’ve got to be able to stay in the game. Our first road game, it just snowballed on us and we didn’t respond well.”

What type of challenge Iona will pose

“Tomorrow night is a team that presses the whole game, and they just give you a different set of problems that we need to do a good job of handling. We haven’t played a team that’s pressed us like we’re going to get pressed for 40 minutes, so it’ll be another learning opportunity. In practice, it looks good, but when we get out on that game floor, how do we respond and react to it?”

What he learned about Jonathan Powell vs. Pitt

“I love the fact that he had a tough first half and he came out in the second half and kept shooting. That’s what he should do. Missing open shots when you’re a good shooter, you have to keep shooting. Percentages say that’s going to balance itself out. He ended up 4/10 from three, that’s 40% - a nice, solid night. He feels like he should have made seven or eight out of ten with those open looks, but overall I just liked his mindset. He didn’t give in to it because he missed a few shots.”

Thoughts on playing in the mid-season tournaments

“I love the MTEs. I think they’re great opportunities for everybody to put yourself in a tournament setting, so you can see how they kind of respond to playing three games in three days. It’s similar to conference tournaments, so it’ll be an idea of like at some point guys, this is what we’re going to be in in March. It gives you a little early glimpse of some of those things.”

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