Big Test Awaits No. 12 West Virginia in Lubbock

No. 12 West Virginia looks to remain in the Big 12 title conversation with a win at Texas Tech

Morgantown, WV – The No. 12 West Virginia Mountaineers (16-3, 4-2) are looking to do something they haven’t done in four years on Wednesday night, that is, go into Lubbock, Texas and win. West Virginia has lost three-straight inside United Supermarkets Arena and it’s no coincidence it coincides with the hiring of Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard (184-68).

West Virginia will be walking into a hostile environment and a fanbase seeking vengeance after the Mountaineers upset Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament last year, along with the loss earlier in the month in Morgantown. Additionally, the Red Raiders have only won two of their last six, including a gut-wrenching overtime home loss to No. 15 Kentucky on Saturday.

Sitting at 12-7 and 3-3 in Big 12 Play, the 2019 Big 12 regular-season champions, Texas Tech is in danger of falling below .500 in conference play and a loss to West Virginia would put them three games behind the Mountaineers.

“We’re in the same situation, basically, we were in at Kansas State,” said West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins. “We’re playing a desperate team and a desperate team with a sellout crowd. We’re a young group, we haven’t been through that a lot. I think that’s the hardest part.”

Then, Huggins reflected on a post-game handshake with legendary coach Bob Knight during his time at Cincinnati.

“Early on in Cincinnati we lost to Indiana at home, we were up at halftime they came back to beat us in the second half in a close game. And I went down to shake coach Knight’s hand and he said, ‘This wasn’t fair to your kids.’ And I’m like ‘What?’ He said, ‘It wasn’t fair to your kids.’ I said, ‘I don’t understand.’ He said, ‘We’re used to this. We’re used to playing in front of sellout crowds. We’re used to being everybody’s big game. Your guys weren’t used to having a game this big. It’s not their fault, they’ll grow into it.’ And I’m like thinking, ‘What an asinine thing to say to a guy after he just got beat.’ But you know what? He’s 100% right and as we got better, as we grew up as a team, as a program, we took everybody’s best shot. I mean, no matter where we went, we were everybody’s circled game of the year. And that’s where we got to get to and we got to the fact that ‘Hey this is it, this is it’ and we have to rise to the occasion. That’s where we are right now.”

“We’ve got to keep getting better,” continued Huggins. “We can’t think we’ve ‘arrived’ because we haven’t ‘arrived’. When we can start to go to Lubbock and win. When we can go to Kansas and win, despite all the odds, then all of a sudden, then we’ve ‘arrived'. But until then, we’re walking uphill.”

Two glaring losses for the Mountaineers are the ones West Virginia were supposed to win. Both on the road, the St. Johns loss and the head-shaking loss to Kansas State less than two weeks ago, were followed by a common theme from Huggins' postgame press conference stating that the team was “unprepared”.

However, West Virginia bounced back strong since that Kansas State loss by demoralizing Texas and pounding Missouri.

 The reemergence of starters Jordan McCabe, Jermaine Haley, and Emmitt Matthews in the last two games have been key along with consistent play from Derek Culver, Oscar Tshiebwe and Deuce McBride. Couple that with the defensive intensity of Gabe Osabuohien and the tenacity of Chase Harler, the Mountaineers look unbeatable. But if West Virginia falls into the “we’ve arrived” mentality, they will be looking for help to reach one of their goals, the Big 12 Conference regular-season championship.

Texas Tech is coming into the return game fully rostered. A missing Red Raider piece, in West Virginia’s 12-point win over Texas Tech in Morgantown, was freshman guard Terrance Shannon Jr (6-6, 210), who is averaging 11.5 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.

“He’s a stretch four and they play him sometimes at the five. Our bigs – fortunately, our non-conference schedule helped us in that Derek and Oscar had to go out on the floor and guard. But, he’s a mismatch for most bigs because he bounces it so well.”

Then, there’s Jahmi’us Ramsey, another freshman in the Big 12 making his case for Newcomer of the Year, but since West Virginia held him to eight points in the first meeting, he’s been held to single digits twice in four games, including a six-point outing in the loss to Kentucky. Nonetheless, he still leads the team in scoring at 14.9 points per game.

Davide Moretti (Jr G 6-3, 180) was the only Red Raider to reach double figures in Morgantown and has gotten the better of the Mountaineers from the perimeter throughout his career. In the last two meetings, Moretti is 6-14 from three-point range and 10-22 from the field for 26 points.

West Virginia and Texas Tech tip-off at 8:00 pm on ESPN-Plus.