West Virginia collected their third win in Big 12 play on Sunday afternoon after fending off a second-half surge from Colorado. With the 78-70 victory, WVU improves to 12-3 overall and 3-1 in conference play. After falling out of the AP Top 25 due to the home loss to the Arizona Wildcats on Tuesday of last week, West Virginia now prepares for two matchups with Top 10 teams in the AP Poll this week.
WVU at No. 10 Houston
The West Virginia men’s basketball team did not travel back home to Morgantown following their win on Sunday evening in Colorado. Instead, they made the trip to Houston, Texas ahead of their Wednesday night matchup with the 10th-ranked, Houston Cougars who are 4-0 in Big 12 play.
Houston is led by a balanced attack in which their top 5 scorers range from 14.1 to 8.9 points per game. Notably, LJ Cryer who is in his second season with the Cougars after transferring from Baylor is averaging 14.1 points per game while shooting over 40% from 3-point range on the season. His backcourt mate Emmanuel Sharp is averaging the same scoring output as Cryer, knocking down nearly half of his 3-point attempts and taking 5.6 per game.
Kelvin Sampson’s Houston defense is performing just about as well as you would expect. They are holding opposing offenses to just 54.2 points per game, which leads the nation. In 4 conference matchups thus far, Houston has won games by margins of 13 against Oklahoma State, 31 against BYU, 19 against TCU, and 30 against Kansas State. Houston has reeled off 8-straight victories leading to their climb back inside the AP Top 10, where they began the season before suffering a few losses.
Certainly, Houston will look to key in on the Big 12’s leading scorer Javon Small in the matchup with the Mountaineers. Small is averaging nearly 20 points per game and the Mountaineers will need a big offensive output from Small if they want any chance to pick up another impressive Big 12 road win.
WVU vs. No. 2 Iowa State
On Saturday, the Mountaineers will be back in action in Morgantown when they host the 2nd-ranked team in the nation, the Iowa State Cyclones. Like Houston, Iowa State is also unbeaten in conference play at 4-0. Prior to their trip to Morgantown, the Cyclones will face off with the Kansas Jayhawks at home in a matchup of top 10 teams on Wednesday night. College basketball fans can and should expect both the Hilton Coliseum and WVU Coliseum to be electric atmospheres for those games this week.
Iowa State has a very balanced offensive attack, with its top six leading scorers averaging 17.3 to 9.5 points per game. Curtis Jones comes off the bench for the Cyclones and is averaging a team-leading 17.3.
When you play in the Big 12, you are likely to have weeks that feature two matchups with national title contenders. But the WVU schedule undoubtedly still has two tough tests this week. Some of the biggest question marks surrounding WVU still are unanswered in relation to the injuries of key players such as Tucker DeVries and KJ Tenner. While the shorthanded Mountaineers were able to fend off Colorado, they will need as much help as they can get from several key contributors in addition to Javon Small if they want to knock off one or two top 10 teams this week.