West Virginia is set to play in the first of two-conference wide challenge competitions on the 2019-2020 schedule Saturday inside Madison Square Garden.

The game will pit the Mountaineers against St. John’s as part of the scheduling alliance between the Big 12 and the Big East Conference.

It’s a familiar match up for the Mountaineers considering the two schools were once opponents in the Big East. The two met 20 times from 1995-2011, with the Mountaineers holding a 13-7 edge.

The rest of the Big 12 will play the other remaining 9 members of the Big East and the games will rotate between the teams through the 2022-23 seasons.

The second challenge event will come with the Big 12/SEC Challenge, which is now into its seventh year with the Big 12 claiming five of the events, the SEC one and one tie. It holds the same format as the Big East alliance as 10 Big 12 teams will square off with 10 SEC teams with five from each league hosting. The teams are rotated annually in order to get different matchups between the leagues.

The major difference between the two is that the latter is held once conference play begins instead of the early portion of the schedule.

For West Virginia, the opponent this season in the challenge will be Missouri and the game will be played Jan. 25 inside the Coliseum.

For the Big 12, there is an advantage to these two annual games as it provides a league that only plays an 18-game conference schedule two other marquee non-conference opponents.

“I think it’s good,” head coach Bob Huggins said.

That’s important because many leagues will play a 20-game conference schedule so essentially adding these two games to the slate, gives the Mountaineers and other Big 12 teams a guaranteed 20 quality games when comparing resumes for possible tournament seeding.

“We kind of have our 20,” Huggins said. “So that we’re not shorted anywhere because we have less so called quality games than the people that have 20.”

Scheduling is always an important aspect for Huggins but he’s adamant that even with these two games also on the slate it doesn’t affect how he looks at opponents for his club. He points to a matchup in Cleveland against Ohio State later this month as evidence.

“We had an opportunity to play Ohio State in Northeast Ohio and because we recruit Northeast Ohio hard that was a good game for us,” he said.

So expect these quality non-conference dates for the foreseeable future.

WATCH: Musings from the Mountains | West Virginia Football Q&A | Episode 48

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @PatrickKotnik

•Like us on Facebook