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MORGANTOWN -- Among all the problems West Virginia's men's basketball team has faced this season -- and there is no quibbling that they have used up their allotment of problems for this decade -- the most pressing on-court deficiency has been a failure to rebound.
That, by the way, is a failure to rebound missed shots -- especially their own -- and to rebound from the losses the deficiency has produced.
As Toledo invades the Coliseum for a 1 p.m. game today that wraps up the home non-conference schedule for the season and the pre-Christmas portion of the schedule and that has produced 4 wins and 7 losses, the problem doesn't figure to improve with the team's top rebounder Jesse Edwards sidelines for at least a month recovering from a broken right wrist.
"I continue to tell these guys, if we don't rebound, we're not going to win, and we were minus eight in that category and we gave up 12 offensive rebounds," interim coach Josh Eilert said after dropping a 66-65 decision to Radford on Saturday when an off-balance, last second by DaQuan Smith swished through the hoop.
"Those are things we can fix," Eilert continued. "We can fix that with effort, with attitude and a little bit of want to. So, we have to shore that up if we want (to be) a good team."
The rebounding figures are very un-WVU like, especially coming against a mostly non-Power 5 group of teams. The Mountaineers in 11 games have outrebounded the opponents 409-406 and have been outrebounded in each of the last four games, three of those losses.
The deficiency has been most prevalent on the offensive boards with WVU having grabbed only 29 offensive rebounds in those last four games.
Opponents have scored 99 second chance points to 75 for WVU over the last nine games, even though the Mountaineers held Pitt no 0 second chance points.
While the rebounding doesn't figure to improve without Edwards, the team's play figures to improve as a new mix with three new starters plays more up tempo and learns the moves of each other.
In the loss to Radford, RaeQuan Battle made his much-litigated and long-awaited debut and it was one for the books -- the record books.
His 29 points were the most ever scored by a Mountaineer player in his debut game. In that same game point guard Kerr Kriisa was playing just for the second time after debuting with 20 points against UMass and Noah Farrakhan got his second game with the team against Radford and added 16 points after his 15 in the debut.
Those three players, with Akok Akok moving into Edwards' place in the starting lineup, and Quinn Slazinski give WVU a more aggressive offensive look. It may be that this is the path WVU must follow to get ready for what is now a fast approaching Big 12 season with only a December 30 game against Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio, left before conference play after this.
This is a team just getting to know each other.
"Every time we really shared that ball; got that extra pass and got that thing moving, we got a good look," Eilert said following the Radford loss. "[We need] a more 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 Edwards, and we don't have Jesse in the lineup, so we're trying to figure out our new identity offensively. It'll come with some time, not that it's an excuse ,but that's where we're at right now. Figure out that identity and that chemistry that is going to make us good in the end."
Toledo comes into the 1 p.m. game on ESPN+ off an 86-60 home loss to Vermont, which dropped its season record to 6-5.
But even though Vermont was totally dominant shooting 54.1% from the floor while making 10 of 27 from 3-point range, don't jump to any conclusions. They had won three straight before that game and came into this season after winning the Mid-American Conference title with 27 wins and with 26 wins in the previous season.