Bob Huggins always tries to load up his team’s schedule as much as possible. Turns out, it was quite the benefit for this West Virginia team when it came to NCAA Tournament seeding.
The Mountaineers finished 18-9 overall but did not have a single loss that would be considered among the bad variety. The Big 12 Conference team finished 7-7 in quadrant one matchups and each of the 9 losses on their resume advanced to the NCAA Tournament field.
Considering that the Big 12 Conference as a whole put seven teams into the field, 70-percent of its membership and the highest mark among any conference, and five of those teams are a 4 seed or above it’s a peek into the strength of the schedule. West Virginia is one of three Big 12 teams on the three line.
“When you look at that bracket and you look at the respect our league got. How many teams we got in, seven teams in, but more importantly than that look at the seeds,” Huggins said.
That doesn’t even include the out of conference schedule which consisted of five other teams that were in the field including No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga. That game against the Bulldogs wasn't even originally scheduled but instead one that Huggins sought after to challenge his team after cancelations opened the slot.
Huggins was pleased with his team being slotted on the No. 3 line for the NCAA and will open against the No. 14 seed Morehead State team (23-7) that has lost only one game since Dec. 21. Despite not knowing much about the Eagles when the brackets were announced, Huggins is excited for his team’s potential especially with how much seasoning they were able to get over the course of their schedule.
“We lost nine games and we’re a three seed. I think that bodes well for who we played. I think we played as good of a schedule as virtually anybody has,” Huggins said.
The Mountaineers will play at 9:50 p.m. Friday inside Lucas Oil Stadium and work has already begun for preparation. The veteran head coach planned to watch four or five games in order to get familiar with the Eagles and what they bring to the table.
The plan for now is to leave for Indiana, where all the games will be played, Monday and then remain there in the bubble situation until the team is eliminated.
“We’re just happy to be going. We’ve been off a while so we’re kind of anxious to play again,” he said.
If the Mountaineers are able to get past Morehead State, they would play the winner of No. 6 San Diego State and No. 11 Syracuse Sunday. The head coach is plenty familiar with both of those teams after matching up against them in the past.
Win those two and the Mountaineers would be off to the Sweet 16.
It is the highest seed for West Virginia since the 2015-16 season where they were also seeded on the three line but lost to Stephen F. Austin in the first round of the tournament. But Huggins believes those two situations are very different ones. Especially because this team only has one player that has NCAA experience in Gabe Osabuohien and wasn’t able to participate last year due to COVID-19.
“I think these guys will be ready to go and they’ll be chomping at the bit to be able to play in the NCAA Tournament,” Huggins said.
The goal will be to spend as much time as possible in Indiana over the next several weeks and there is no question that the road the Mountaineers have traveled thus far will have them prepared.
“I know with our guys we want to keep playing. It was a really disappointing thing that was a hard loss to Oklahoma State because we wanted to stay around Kansas City longer. It may help us,” he said.
----------
• 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, @JaredSerre
•Like us on Facebook
