MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s rookie coach doesn’t want to be cast as a victim of anything, not even in a year that has been criminal for the Mountaineers in the way it has played out.

The latest example was Friday night when they hosted St. John’s and its Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino to the Coliseum for the annual Big East-Big 12 Battle, a game that went down to the wire before the Johnnies broke loose in the final two minutes and scratched out a 79-73 before 10,781 vocal fans.

Pitino called it “a great win”, coming as it did on the road and with a lot of adversity on his side, and maybe it was because there seemed to be some Coliseum magic at hand, the scoreboard showing the Red Storm clinging to a 70-68 lead after a Quinn Slazinski basket.

That’s anyone’s game, but it was St. John’s that stepped up and took it.

“I felt like in a lot of ways St. John’s was hungrier,” Eilert said. “They came in here and they wanted it. They came in and played with a tenacity and we probably didn’t have that approach. We had more of a finesse approach. They were more grit and grind. They came up with every hard rebound, every 50-50 ball and in a possession game like that, you have to have those extra possessions.”

It’s funny because WVU left its guts out there. It, like St. John’s got floor burns, although none of them had a tooth chipped and had to find it on the floor as did Joel Soriano, who dominated with 24 points and nine rebounds before fouling out.

But while St. John’s picked up floor burns, they also always seemed to be in the right place to get those 50-50 balls or long rebounds.

Slazinski led WVU with 19 points and 7 rebounds while Jesse Edwards had 15 points and 6 rebounds.

WVU fell to 3-4 while St. John’s went to 5-2.