MORGANTOWN — Normally, all you see is the players hugging each other and heading off the bench at the start of a basketball game, the five who enter the floor are the starting five.

Seems simple enough for a coach, but a lot more goes into it other than wondering if your Sharpie will run out of ink before you finish writing it out.

You go over who’s hot, who’s not. You look at the style of play you want to use that night, about whether the other team’s weakness is rebounding or handling the pressure of 3-point shooting. You think of matchups, where your advantage may lie, where the opponent’s may lie.

But Josh Eilert’s lineup for Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. Hall of Fame Classic in Springfield, Mass., against UMass and his coaching buddy, Frank Martin, who gave him a graduate assistant job at Kansas State when he was just getting started, was a lot more complicated than most.

And, as everything else is these days, the complications came around a pair of NCAA rulings.

First, and this was a certainty, he was getting his top portal acquisition, point guard Kerr Kriisa, back from a nine-game suspension for transgressions at Arizona before he transferred.

Then he was waiting to see what decision he, athletic director Wren Baker and players RaeQuan Battle and Noah Farrakhan had come up with in the light of the NCAA being forced by 14-day restraining order to allow them to play after they were ruled ineligible under the organization’s transfer rules.

Battle, of course, has been fighting to gain eligibility along with a number of other NCAA players, leading to a showdown in a court of law.

On the surface it seemed like a no-brainer, since the courts had cleared the way for them to play. But that was more of a trick with mirrors, for the body later clarified the situation, saying that there would be no problem for the school if those players played but that should they win the court case after the TRO playing would cost them a year of eligibility.

“It’s mainly the eligibility,” Eilert said during a Zoom call Thursday. “In 14 days, we play three games. If the decision is overturned and (Battle and Farrakhan) play during this course of the season and they lose that year of eligibility, that doesn’t seem like we made the right decision by the student-athlete.”

So the decision had to be made in the shade of possibility, meaning they needed input from everywhere.

“Those conversations will have to be had with those student-athletes and their families and our department to figure out what’s best for them and for us, as a whole,” Eilert said. “I want all the facts laid out for everybody involved before making those decisions. I think that’s the right way to approach these things.”

If WVU goes ahead and plays Battle — and the scale would seem to tip toward their doing that with all that has been made of his mental well-being at stake — it would change the entire style of Mountaineer play.

With him at guard with Kerr and probably Kobe Johnson, Greg Slazinski up front with Jesse Edwards it’s a whole different ball game, so to speak.

“It’s a lot faster. We had to by default slow everything down to be competitive because of our lack of depth. We’re still transitioning Akok Akok back at the 4 position. If we have Noah and Rae, that’s depth at the guards. We will have fresher legs out there,” Eilert said.

“Certainly, it’s easier for the coaching staff to hold guys accountable for what they are doing out there when it’s easier to replace them.”

The only question would be how much rust Kriisa and Battle would carry with them from missing nine games, although both have been practicing with the team all season.

“In terms of getting that game-day rust off could be an issue. They missed nine games,” Eilert said. “Kerr got a chance to play a couple with the closed door scrimmage (against Vanderbilt) and against George Mason, but Noah and Rae haven’t had that game-day experience for quite some time.

“Those guys have been ultra competitive and ultra locker in practice every single day, not going through motions in any means. They have been practicing together. It’s not like they’ve been sitting out. I don’t see that as a big issue. Every indication I’ve had is the rest of the guys are really excited.”