PREVIEW: West Virginia is Seeking Sixth Consecutive Win

Morgantown, WV – The West Virginia Mountaineers seek their sixth consecutive win as they host the Kent State Golden Flashes (5-3) early Sunday evening at 4:00 and will be televised on ESPN2.

The game marks the first Power Five opponent for the Golden Flashes, although they opened the season with a 73-59 loss against Big East Conference member Xavier to open the season. Kent State ripped off three consecutive wins after the season opener, including notching wins over James Madison and George Washington in the Naples Invitational, before losing to Easter Tennessee State in the championship. They bounced back with a home win over Point Park before shooting 28.8% from the field in the loss to Towson on Monday. Kent State got back in the win column on Thursday with a 69-62 win over Detroit Mercy.

Kent State is led by a trio of guards, starting with junior Sincere Carry. He leads the team in scoring, averaging 14.8 points per game along with a team-leading 5.1 assists per game. In addition, junior Malique Jacobs is snagging a team-leading 7.7 rebounds per game with 13.7 ppg while Giovanni Santiago is leading the team in three-point percentage, shooting 46.5% from behind the arc and averaging 10.4 ppg.

"They're good," said West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins. "Sincere has really made a huge difference on their team. He's a guy who can score it from anywhere – somebody that you've got to pay attention to - he's going to make shots."

In Kent State's five wins, they have outrebounded their opponents by an average of 13.6 rebounds per game. However, in their losses, they lost the battle on the boards by a margin of -14.3.

West Virginia is coming off its biggest win of the season over No. 15 Connecticut on Wednesday, extending the Mountaineers winning streak to five.

"I think we're getting better," said West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins.

Huggins and his staff have been looking for a presence in the frontcourt after the departure of Derek Culver at the conclusion of last season and may have found some of it in DePaul transfer Pauly Paulicap.

"I think when we started the season, we had no one who could score with their back to the basket. Pauly has worked really hard, and Pauly is very capable now of scoring with his back to the basket - actually scored with his back to the basket against Connecticut and their bigs. So, we have somebody now. I wish we had a few more," said Huggins before explaining his frontcourt needs to work on their base and provided an example with FIU transfer Dimon Carrigan.

"I think if DC would put a little bit more time in – he's a skilled guy. He just doesn't sit down - he doesn't understand how important a really strong base is," said Huggins. "So, when you stand up like that, you're apt to get moved particularly down there. We just got to get more guys like Pauly that they can't move."

West Virginia guard Taz Sherman has worked his way into the top 10 nationally in scoring, averaging 21.2 ppg and coming in second in the Big 12 behind Kansas' Ochai Agbaji's 22.6 ppg.

"He had a phenomenal summer. He didn't go home, stayed here, was in the gym every day, worked really hard. One of the guys smart enough to hang out with the older guys in the gym to see how they worked and what they learned by going and playing professionally overseas. I think it really helped him," said Huggins.

Sean McNeil returned from a lower back injury against UConn and put up 16 points, upping his scoring to 12.5 ppg.

West Virginia is 1-1 all-time versus Kent State.

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