Heading into the Fort Myers Tipoff next week, West Virginia men’s basketball head coach Josh Eilert spoke about the team’s philosophy moving forward.
“Well, me personally I don’t get involved in a second opponent,” Eilert said about how he prepares for a potential second opponent. “We divi up the scouts in terms of our assistants and so, we have guys working on those scouts in the meantime, but I don’t want to look ahead past SMU at this point, me personally and I don’t want our team looking past them in any way.”
Southern Methodist is 3-1 so far this season, averaging 79 points a game and holding their opponents to an average of 65.5 points a game. The Mountaineers are averaging 67.3 points a game.
Six-foot-four guard Chuck Harris is the top scorer for the Mustangs, averaging 14.3 points per game.
Harris is shooting 8-18 from the three-point arc this season and has also shown up defensively, with two blocks and seven steals thus far.
Another shooter for SMU is coach Rob Lanier’s son, Emory Lanier.
“When I hear coach’s son, that turns my ears up a little again, after that Monmouth (Xander Rice) game,” Eilert said. “He’s shooting it really well as well, so they got some guys that can fill it (the basket) up and certainly I think it’s no secret that we’re going to have to use some other defensive tactics like we have in the past to save our legs.”
Lanier is 50% from three, shooting seven of 14 and yet he only averages nine minutes a game.
Tip-off for SMU-WVU is set for 8:30 p.m. EST in Southwest Florida and will be televised on FS1.
Shall the Mountaineers advance, they’ll be playing the winner of the Wisconsin vs Virginia game.
