What Josh Eilert Said Following the Win Over George Mason

Opening Statement

"First of all, I just want to give you an update on (fifth year senior forward Akok) Akok. I got good news. He’s stable, and he’s responsive. He wanted to make sure he congratulated his teammates, and he’s in a good place right now. They’re probably going to be holding him overnight to do a lot of testing, but I never thought I’d have to deal with a situation like that. It’s heartbreaking, but I’m glad he’s still here with us.

"On the game, credit to George Mason. They came in here ready to go and ready to fight. It was a dog fight. They took it right to us. They certainly challenged us on the defensive end. There’s a lot of things we need to clean up in that regard. Credit to (George Mason Head Coach) Tony (Skinn) and his team and the program for coming in here and giving us a good test. (It’s) something we probably needed going into that first game.

"Thank you to the fans for coming out. It sounds like we had about 9,000. There’s a lot going on a Friday night, and I feel the support from the Mountaineer nation. That was uplifting for our guys and fun to play in for them."

On the decision to resume the game following the stoppage

"There was a discussion. Tony and I talked. He left it up to me. I made sure the guys were in a good headspace, good enough headspace to continue the game. That was important, and they wanted to play so we decided it was best to move on, try to turn the page, and get out there for warm up."

On the team’s performance following the stoppage

"I had to force the issue with (fifth year senior center) Jesse (Edwards). I wanted to do as much as I can, to get everyone involved. Sometimes you just keep riding that horse, riding that horse and you wear him down. We have lack of depth at the big, so that’s concerning. It’s a charity exhibition game, but ultimately I wanted to win. I went to Jesse, and I kept forcing that issue. He handled it well and kept fighting and got us the win."

On Jesse Edwards’ performance in the final minutes

"We have to keep him on the floor. That’s it at half time. As a coach with this team, that’s my worst nightmare to have my two bigs with foul trouble. We haven’t ran a lot of those lineups out there before, and we had to go small. We put (fifth year forward) Quinn (Slazinski) at the five. We’ve never done that before in practice. We were experimenting on the fly to figure out how to win the game. Credit to those guys. Every one of them stepped up and figured out a way to contribute and handle the adversity and figure out a way to get a win."

On handling the stoppage

"It’s fortunate that Akok is doing well. It’s one of those things that gives perspective to what we’ve got going on here. This is a basketball game, but these are human lives. These kids, you get really close to (them). In life, you move on. I hate to say it like that. He’s good and in a good place. The guys wanted to continue playing, so we kept playing."

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