WVU hosts No. 25 Texas this evening
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MORGANTOWN -- As many good offensive players as Bob Huggins had in his 16 years at West Virginia, his reputation was built on defense … pressure, hardnose, physical defense.
When you thought West Virginia defense, any number of images came to mind … Sagaba Konate elevating to make a spectacular two-hand block, Jevon Carter picking your pocket as you tried to dribble up the floor.
At one point, it became nationally famous as Press Virginia.
This season, though, with a scattershot roster that had to be gerrymandered into a team around and through the transfer portal with additions or subtractions at the whim of the NCAA, interim coach Josh Eilert hasn't been able to create any philosophy for his defense.
He knows it, understands the situation and is trying to make his players understand it, too, as they are ready for Texas to come into the Coliseum for the last time as a Big 12 member at 6 p.m. today.
He's talked it up all this week, noted that they are giving up far too many points, and gone to work trying to find a solution.
"It's got to be a team mentality," he said, noting he doesn't have any players with the skills that Konate or Carter brought to the team in previous years. "It has to be 'us vs. them', not 'me vs. my matchup'. I talked about that a lot yesterday. We can't get in the mindset I'm going to guard this guy or that guy. It has to be team defense.'
It is a similar philosophy to Huggins, although he spent a lifetime perfecting how to get that across to his players, as forward Patrick Suemnick noted during Friday's media session.
"It's more about taking it personal. Sometimes different things are going on and you have different things in your head.
"One of the things I remember about Huggs was that he got you to take things personal," Suemnick said. "Like, if your man scored on you, he was ripping you a new one and is saying 'Is he better than you?'"
It's probably understating it to say Huggins was "saying" it to you. But he made his point. That's where this team has to get to.
"You got to take things personal and I think sometimes we don't necessarily say 'My man isn't scoring and I'm going to do everything I can absolutely do to stop him from scoring," Suemnick said. "I think we can definitely grow in that category … and we have been. It's been a big area of emphasis in practice. They brought up how many points we're giving up and we need to start taking this a lot more personal."
As Eilert points out, the biggest problem as they have come to possess a 5-10 record with losses in each of their first two Big 12 games has been on defense.
"I told those guys after the Kansas State game, we can point to our offense. We have to be efficient. There's a lot of ways we can improve, but the one thing that sticks out to me is we gave up 81 points against Kansas State and we gave up 89 points against Houston.
"So, in league play we're giving up 85 points a game. I know, Houston is a very, very good offensive team, but they have their struggles in the half court. But, not even knowing the score, in this league you have to hang your hat on some defense."
Take the upset loss Houston suffered at Ames against Iowa State this week.
"Houston lost to Iowa State, 57-53, holding them to 57 points in Hilton Coliseum and came out of there with a loss," Eilert said. "You look at the averages in the first Big 12 games, the winning teams are averaging 71 and the losing teams are averaging 65. So, we are scoring enough to win even though we have to be more efficient, but the defensive end we have to shore up and shore up quick."
So, without the shot blocker or big-time thieve, how can they get the job done on defense?
"It has to be team defense. You need as much ball pressure as possible in anything you do, but that ball pressure has to understand that you have help behind you. With the roster we have right now, you have to understand you're not on an island out there," Eilert said.
"You need guys behind you to stunt and dig and do whatever needs to be done to shore up the defense. It has to be us vs. them and that we are all connected. There has been something going wrong with the connections to date, however.
"Sometimes you see a lot of disconnect on the defensive end and that's what we've worked hard on over the last couple of days to preach and clean up and teach. I've been pleased with what I've seen in practice thus far."
Texas is not a team to think you can outscore and win with offense. They are big, talented and physical. That's why they are 11-3.
"They are as good a team as we will face this year," Eilert said.