The West Virginia Mountaineers most likely will not be making the NCAA Tournament this season, which would mark the third straight season the program has missed out on the Big Dance. But WVU certainly isn't done fighting, and they showed that on Friday night.
The Mountaineers hosted the Knights at Hope Coliseum in their final game of the regular season, which served as Senior Night for the program. And in front of a raucous crowd, the Mountaineers looked dominant from whistle-to-whistle against a certified NCAA Tournament team for the second weekend in a row, running away to a 77-62 win to secure a season sweep against UCF and celebrate a victorious Senior Night.
"I just told the group man, I'm so incredibly thankful for them and just super happy for them," Hodge said after the win.
"My wife, she hates the phrase 'you deserve something in life.' She'd change the phrase to they earned it, and they certainly earned it. Their ability to have things go very negative, whether it's in a game, during a game, or for the entire game, but to still have the resolve and the resiliency to scrape themselves off the mat. They handled the adversity."
What does this win mean for the West Virginia Mountaineers?
Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, UCF was just below where they needed to be in the NET Rankings to earn WVU their sixth Quad 1 win of the season. However, a Quad 2 victory over a tournament team that you've now beaten twice on the season still helps for resume purposes.
But unfortunately for WVU, conference losses to Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and Utah and non-conference losses to Xavier and Wake Forest are enought to really damage their resume, and they'll likely need to win the Big 12 Tournament next week to advance to the NCAA Tournament – or they'll at least need to win 2-3 games.
But luckily for the Mountaineers, the win over UCF secured a first-round bye, as they will now finish no worse than eighth in the regular season conference standings. So they'll get a day to rest before facing an opponent in their opening game that already has a game of wear and tear the day before.