The Big 12 Men's Basketball Tournament starts today in Kansas City, with the West Virginia Mountaineers set to open with their first game on Wednesday. And if WVU wants to make the NCAA Tournament, they have plenty of work to do this week.
There are a couple different paths for the Mountaineers to get to the NCAA Tournament. A championship is not necessary if they could make a run to the title game with wins over highly ranked opponents such as BYU, Houston, and Kansas. But after several bad losses on the season, that still not be certain for the Mountaineers.
Now, West Virginia can also earn an automatic bid by winning the whole shebang, but that's going to require four wins in four days. And since you wouldn't be relying upon beating big enough names to boost your resume in this scenario, you're probably hoping for a little bit more chaos to make the path to pulling that off easier. So which teams, ideally, would WVU want to draw.
Who are the optimal Big 12 Tournament opponents for WVU basketball?
Second Round: Kansas State
The Mountaineers lost to Kansas State on the road just a week ago, but they played ice cold and still had to do everything they could not to pull off a win. They have already beat Kansas State in Morgantown this season as well, and that was before the Wildcats fired their coach. Despite that recent loss it's not hard to imagine they'd provide be an easier game than BYU.
Quarterfinals: Houston
Well, you don't get much of a choice here. If WVU wants to win, they'll have to find a way to beat Houston.
Semifinals: Colorado
Out of the four possible opponents here, Colorado and Kansas are the two that the Mountaineers have beaten this season. There's no doubt in my mind Colorado would be easier to beat than Kansas, especially considering Kansas would be playing their second game of the week and Colorado would be playing their fourth.
Finals: Arizona State
There are three teams on this side of the bracket that WVU has beaten this season. Two of them are UCF and Cincinnati, who WVU beat twice. The you have Arizona State, which is arguably the worst of the three teams, who has only seen WVU once. You probably don't like the odds of beating any team three times in a year, and you probably prefer the weakest potential option.