Offense good, defense needs work early for Golden Bears

Oct. 31—In his first game as WVU Tech's head coach, George Wilmore was more than happy with his offense.

The defense was another matter.

The Golden Bears opened up the season with a 103-100 overtime loss to Alderson Broaddus Friday night. It was just the kind of offensive output Wilmore was looking for — high shooting percentages, including from 3-point range, and five players in double figures.

"Offensively I thought we played really, really well, just moving the ball, going right to what we want to do offensively," Wilmore said Monday. "Obviously a lot of 3s; we shot 30 of them. Shot 13-for-30, which is a good number for us."

Tech was without the presence of 6-foot-7 Thomas Hailey, who will be out until December with a shoulder injury. That didn't deplete the Bears on the inside, still with the services of 6-6 Ashton Parker and 6-10 center Saliou Diop, but it did open things up for Beckley native Bryce Radford to make an impact in his Golden Bears debut.

After three seasons at IUP, Radford announced his transfer to Tech last spring. The 2019 Woodrow Wilson graduate made a grand return to the venue in which he found success as a Flying Eagle, hitting on 7 of 16 3-pointers and finishing with a career-high 29 points.

"Without Thomas, we had to kind of play a little more outside-in," Wilmore said. "Obviously we've still got Ashton and we've still got Sal, but with the dynamic of Bryce we were able to definitely shoot a lot of 3s."

It was also a big day for Andrew Work, another member of the local Class of 2019. The Oak Hill graduate has been a fixture for the Golden Bears since the year he arrived.

Against the Battlers, Work was 9-of-15 from the floor and 12-of-14 at the free throw line for a career-best 30 points. He also led Tech with five assists and tied with Parker at five rebounds.

Keondré King added 12 points and Thomas and freshman Brant Smithers both had 10.

Tech shot 33-of-65 (50.8 percent) overall and committed just 10 turnovers. And Wilmore thinks there's room for more.

"Our offense can be even a lot better," he said. "The defense is what we really, really need to work on. Giving up 103 points is not what we want to do. We want to control the tempo on defense, we want to make teams shoot a lot of contested shots."

He didn't feel that happened enough, especially late, against the Battlers, who were 34-of-66 (51.5 percent) from the field.

"We calculate 'kills' and 'deaths,'" Wilmore said. "So if you get a kill, that means you get three straight stops, and a death is when a team scores three straight times on you. The last 12 minutes of the game, we had zero kills and four deaths. On four different occasions, they scored three straight times. That's something we definitely are focusing on going into South Carolina State."

Yes, the Golden Bears get another crack at a Division I team when they travel to Orangeburg, S.C., Tuesday for a 7 p.m. exhibition against the Bulldogs of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. South Carolina State is coached by former West Virginia University assistant Erik Martin.

Current Tech assistant Payton Sturm was with Martin at WVU and put in a call to pursue the game. The Bulldogs already had a game scheduled with Brewton-Parker, but that game fell through.

"So (Martin) called Payton and asked if we had a date, and I immediately called Bluefield and asked if we could reschedule their game, because this is a great opportunity for us," Wilmore said. "Any time you can play Division I or II teams, for one it gives you some notoriety on the larger scale. We may be on ESPN+. So we had to do it. The budget was good. They're paying us a guarantee, which helps us on the small college level. It was something that was an opportunity that we could not turn down."

The last time the Golden Bears played a Division I team was Dec. 19, 2020, when they defeated Morgan State — also of the MEAC — 73-67.

The game against Bluefield originally scheduled for Tuesday has been rescheduled for Dec. 15 in Beckley. A game against Appalachian Bible College that had been scheduled for Feb. 6 has been canceled. Tech is next scheduled to play at home Nov. 17 against Carlow, a game that will be played at ABC.

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