Kansas at West Virginia 2023 Basketball Preview: How Good are the Mountaineers?

The Jayhawks are again on the road, this time looking for a tough-to-earn win in Morgantown.

The Kansas road tour continues this weekend as the Jayhawks travel to West Virginia. And no matter what you think about this version of the Mountaineers, Morgantown has not been friendly to KU the past decade. Kansas is 4-6 in its last 10 games at West Virginia.

Opponent Overview

Team: West Virginia

Record: 10-4

KenPom: 21

Line: TBD | KenPom has KU -1

Team Form

West Virginia is an interesting team because from a resume perspective, the Mountaineers haven’t accomplished a whole lot, but the predictive metrics love them.

WVU is 10-4 and 0-2 in the Big 12. All of the losses are against top-30 KenPom teams (Purdue, Xavier, K-State, and Oklahoma State), so there’s no shame in that. But the Mountaineers also only have one quad-one win (1-4) to go with two quad-two wins and seven quad-four wins. The best win is either Pitt on the road, Florida on a neutral, or UAB at home.

But the computer numbers still really like West Virginia. WVU is 21st in KenPom, 15th in Torvik, and 16th in the NET, while Sagarin has the Mountaineers at 31. It’s also worth pointing out that, while 0-2 in conference play, both of those games were on the road (we all know how tough road wins in the Big 12 are) and the losses were by a combined 13 points (one in overtime).

Players to Watch

Bob Huggins has revitalized a team that went 16-17 a season ago by hitting the transfer portal hard. The Mountaineers’ top four scorers are all transfers in their first year with the program. This is also an incredibly experienced team, as the top six are all seniors.

Guard Erik Stevenson is the team’s leading scorer at 14.1 points per game and he’s doing so shooting 45% from three on nearly five attempts per game. He will go Bryce Thompson/Pop Isaacs if Kansas lets him. The most productive big man is a familiar face for Kansas. Tre Mitchell left Texas and is now averaging 13.3 points and 5.4 rebounds in his first season in Morgantown. And while Mitchell is strong in the paint, he’s also shooting 38% from three so far this year.

The only other player averaging double figures is Emmitt Matthews at 10.7 ppg, but Iowa transfer Joe Toussaint and Kedrian Johnson are both averaging nine points and three assists per game.

Matchups to Watch

Kansas is facing another team that excels in two dangerous areas: offensive rebounding and getting to the line. West Virginia grabs nearly 35% of its misses (35th nationally) and gets to the line better than almost everyone.

The Jayhawks were able to keep Texas Tech – who has a similar profile – off the glass and charity stripe, and it will be important to do that again. And in typical Huggins-team fashion, WVU fouls a lot. Kansas is in the bottom 30 nationally in getting to the free-throw line, so that’s going to have to change on Saturday.

Another area to watch is Kansas’ ability to finish at the rim. West Virginia is not a good shot-blocking team, so the chances should be there. Can KJ Adams and the Jayhawks’ driving guards finish over a Mountaineers team that doesn’t have a ton of rim protection?

Prediction

Purely looking at this as a game against an 0-2 Big 12 team is underselling West Virginia. I don’t know if they’re really as good as the predictive metrics say, but WVU’s strengths and the home environment make this a dangerous matchup for Kansas.

We know what we’re getting from Kansas’ guards. Granted, Dajuan Harris likely won’t shoot as well as he did Tuesday and McCullar will probably play better. But what I’m interested to watch is KJ Adams and the other bigs — which has meant Zuby Ejiofor first off the bench of late — and if they can win the battle in the paint against Tre Mitchell and leading rebounder Jimmy Bell (another transfer, with Bell coming from Saint Louis).

Any win in Morgantown is worth celebrating. The way that Adams is playing right now makes me think KU comes back to Lawrence having earned another hard-fought, close victory unless the Jayhawks go ice cold from three and WVU shoots lights out.

Kansas 71, West Virginia 66

Prediction record

8-5-1 ATS

Last game – Prediction: 74-70 KU | Actual: 75-72 KU