WVSports.com continues with our popular feature: The 3-2-1. We'll break down three things we learned that week, two questions we have and give one prediction.
Here is the next installment of the 3-2-1 looking at the West Virginia football program, the latest on basketball, and what’s happening in recruiting.
3 things I learned:
1–Seed line getting more bubblier. After West Virginia beat Iowa State the Mountaineers were firmly in the NCAA Tournament field at 13-4 overall but since that point, it's been a struggle for the team to string together wins.
The Mountaineers have lost six of their last eight games since that point including both of their contests this past week at home to BYU and on the road at Baylor. In both of those games West Virginia had opportunities to win but couldn't close the deal down the stretch and now the team finds themselves getting closer to the dreaded bubble.
West Virginia is 15-10 overall and now 6-8 in the Big 12 Conference with six regular season games left to play and then whatever unfolds in the league tournament.
This was already a challenge for this team considering that they're playing with a short rotation and some key pieces are out for the year, but that doesn't matter when it comes to seeding for the NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers have to find some more wins down the stretch in order to put themselves in a position to be selected.
On the plus side, West Virginia has played much better offensive basketball over the past few games and was able to get Javon Small back involved in the scoring with 22 points and 6 assists against Baylor. The defensive end was also much better against the Bears after breakdowns on that end cost them a chance at beating BYU.
But still this team has struggled to close out games of late and get over the hump. That must change over the final six with three at home and three on the road. The seed line has continued to drop to where the Mountaineers are on the verge of being on the bubble and even with an impressive resume with five quadrant one wins that's not where this team wants to find itself at this stage of the year.
This week will provide some more opportunities at home against Cincinnati and on the road at Texas Tech but this team has to find a way to win games down the stretch.
2–White joins the coaching staff. West Virginia officially completed what had been rumored to be in the works for quite some time by announcing that former legendary quarterback Pat White was returning to his alma mater to join head coach Rich Rodriguez's coaching staff. White is set to serve as assistant quarterbacks coach/assistant to the head coach on Rodriguez's first staff in his second tenure.
White had been working as an athlete skill trainer and coach for the past year but prior to that had been an assistant with the Los Angeles Chargers. During his time in Los Angeles, White worked as both a quarterback and wide receiver offensive assistant, providing coaching insight to each room.
White also had previous coaching stops as the pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Campbell (2022), was the interim offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Alabama State (2021), the running backs coach at USF (2020) and the quarterbacks coach at Alcorn State (2018-19).
