West Virginia’s feel-good story took a wrong turn Friday night.
Xander Rice and Monmouth made sure of it.
Rice scored a career-high 30 points — 20 coming in the second half — as the Hawks, a team who won seven games last season, knocked off WVU 73-65 in front of 10,473 fans inside the WVU Coliseum.
“I don’t want to make excuses,” is how WVU head coach Josh Eilert began his postgame session with the media.
He very easily could.
WVU’s story has been well told, between losing a Hall-of-Fame in Bob Huggins in June to losing a number of expected starters through medical issues, suspensions and NCAA waiver problems.
The Mountaineers, it could be said, are playing with a hand tied behind their collective backs.
That mattered little a few nights ago when WVU came back in the second half to win the season opener against Missouri State.
That was jubilation. Then came the second game of the season, which was something else entirely.
“Every challenge presents an opportunity,” Eilert said. “We’re certainly saddled with a lot of challenges. I’m not one to make excuses. I’m one to figure out a solution. Yeah, this is going to eat at me.”
Figuring out a solution for this will simply mean finding someone to make a shot.
WVU (1-1) was held to just 24.3% (9 of 37) shooting in the second half. Through two games, the Mountaineers are making just 33% of the shots they take.
Meanwhile, Monmouth, a little mid-major school located on the New Jersey shore, used Rice’s play-making abilities to run right past the Mountaineers.
“Kobe Johnson is a great defender,” WVU forward Quinn Slazinski began. “Some of those shots we loved to see him take. Sometimes, shots just go in.”
For Rice and the Hawks (1-1), a lot of shots went in during the second half.
“I thought we had a good game plan against him, but maybe we didn’t work on trapping any ball screens or anything like that, and maybe we should have,” Eilert said of Rice’s game. “You have to be careful with getting Jesse (Edwards) in foul trouble, because they’re always going to put him in ball screens. So, he had 30 points, but he also had six assists and one turnover. So, he got other people involved too.”
Edwards kept the Mountaineers alive in the first half, even nailing a shot at the buzzer to give WVU a 33-32 lead at the break.
The Hawks changed that up in the second half, sending their zone defense and collapsing around him.
He did finish with a double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds), but his opportunities and touches became fewer and less frequent as the game wore on.
“We want Jesse to be a finisher,” Slazinski said. “The scout is how can we stop Jesse Edwards? We have to understand that. They zoned up and kind of had five eyes on Jesse. We’ve got to get Jesse the ball. Jesse is the man on this team.”
Slazinski added 15 points for the Mountaineers, who host Jacksonville State on Tuesday, and Kobe Johnson added 13 points.
But Monmouth more than held its own through rebounding, hustle plays and points in the paint.
That led to the Hawks building a lead that reached as high as 13 points with four minutes remaining.
“I went 2-3 zone one time and we couldn’t get a rebound,” Eilert said. “As you could see, on some of those possessions, we struggle with defensive rebounding. There was two free-throw line box outs we missed twice in a row. That’s demoralizing for a coach and demoralizing for a team.”
