WVU Basketball: Press Virginia Tumbles In Latest Poll
By Phil Poling
The WVU Basketball team is coming off back-to-back Big 12 losses, which booted them from the Top-10 and landed them at No. 18.
A home loss to Oklahoma and one on the road against Kansas State are the latest bumps in the road for Bob Huggins’ Mountaineers. Both losses came by a combined six points.
Against the underdog Sooners, West Virginia had to force overtime for a chance to win. But like the Texas Tech game, Press Virginia just couldn’t close and came up short. “It’s OK, though. These losses happen,” we told ourselves. “It’s a random Wednesday night in January. They’ll bounce back.”
Fast forward to Saturday when the Mountaineers traveled to Manhattan. Just days away from No. 2 Kansas visiting Morgantown, the ‘Eers had to prepare to play the Kansas State Wildcars. Surely Bob Huggins’ group would be focused and take care of business against a young Wildcats team. K-State had plans of showing a Top-10 team that they were for real, though, eventually closing out the ‘Eers by four. Personal fouls were a major dilemma for WVU, who had two players foul out (Brandon Watkins & Elijah Macon) and three others commit four personals (Nate Adrian, Jevon Carter & Sagaba Konate).
Albeit a two-game slump, the Mountaineers will have a rather-soon opportunity to bounce back.
Kansas and West Virginia tip-off Tuesday night at 7 p.m. The Mountaineers will hope to protect their home floor and slow the Big 12’s leading scorer, Frank Mason III. While Kansas has Mason, West Virginia has Jevon Carter, who is fourth in the nation in steals. Those two sort of embody this entire rivalry; Mason’s game is flashy, scores at a high clip: Kansas is Big-12’s all-time best. While Carter on the other hand is overlooked and forced to lead the league in steals to get any recognition: Bob Huggins throws Press Virginia down opponent’s throats. With the (apparent) importance of Tuesday’s game, West Virginia will let you down no matter what. If they win, great; they’re back on track. If they lose, well a number of you will say the season’s over; it won’t be. These games are great measuring sticks. And after the last two, it’s obvious that we’re not measuring up to our own standards.