WVU basketball moves ahead in polls again
With six teams in the most recent Coaches Poll, it’s even easier to call the Big 12 the top college basketball conference in the country.
The WVU basketball has helped strengthen the conference’s cause. This week, the Mountaineers check in at No. 10 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and No. 10 in the Associated Press polls.
The new No. 1 team in the country is Villanova, a former Big East rival of the Mountaineers.
Other Big 12 teams in the Top 25 include Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa State and Texas. The Longhorns have jumped into the polls after receiving a few votes in the previous week’s poll.
According to KansasCity.com, the conference has the nation’s No. 1 RPI on the strength of its success against nonconference competition, and it has delivered plenty of dramatics with five league games going into overtime.
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The site suggest three upcoming games to watch, two of which include the WVU basketball team.
One is Tuesday’s match up between West Virginia and Kansas. The other is a Feb. 16 tilt between the Mountaineers and Texas, in Austin.
It would be foolish to suggest that each of the remaining eight games for WVU is a must win. The Mountaineers (19-4, 8-2) already sit in first place of the Big 12 Conference and have surely locked up a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
Now, the Mountaineers are playing for a higher seed in the big dance and, of course, an outright conference championship. For true conference supremacy, West Virginia must win the Big 12 Tournament, which takes place from Marc 9-12 in Kansas City.
Can the Mountaineers win out? Sure. Will they? No way.
The combined record of the eight upcoming opponents is 39-41 within the conference. That’s the second worst remaining slate, besides the Iowa State schedule which sees its teams have a 37-43 conference record.
No game is easy in this conference, especially on the road. The Mountaineers play in one of the most hostile environments in the country on Tuesday at Kansas, where they have yet to win as members of the Big 12 Conference.
WVU will receive somewhat of a reprieve when TCU comes to Morgantown on Saturday. But the Mountaineers can’t think like that.
There are no days off in the best conference in America.