The West Virginia basketball team has high aspirations for this season within the Big 12 Conference.

The Mountaineers returned plenty of talent from a 21-10 team a year ago and has started the season on the right foot rolling up a 6-1 record that has them placed inside the top 10 nationally. None of that will matter once league play gets underway, but it certainly is encouraging when it comes to meeting those goals which include winning a regular reason championship.

But if the Mountaineers want to meet those goals, they’re going to need to make sure they take care of winning games at home first. It hasn’t necessarily been a major problem, with the Mountaineers going 7-2 inside the Coliseum three of the past four years, but that level of play will at least be required if the program is going to compete for the league crown.

The past four league champions have gone a combined 30-6 at home in league play with none of those clubs losing more than two games inside their own building in a single season. It seems easy enough, but this year teams have struggled to hold serve at home going 0-4 in the first four games of the year.

West Virginia will open the Big 12 slate at home against an Iowa State team that wasn’t able to take care of business against Kansas State inside its own building. That alone is a reminder for head coach Bob Huggins to make the message clear to his team.

“We haven’t had a road team lose yet. That means the home team better be ready to play. So, we’re going to emphasize to our guys how important it is that they’re ready to play,” He said.

There is a clearly defined blueprint that teams that have won the league have set in recent seasons now it is about if the Mountaineers can go about following it.

“You can’t win the conference if you’re losing home games. So you look at the teams that have won the league, they’ve defended their home court,” Huggins said.

The Cyclones are led in scoring by guard Rasir Bolton at 15.8 points per game and guard Jalen Coleman-Lands at 13.5 points per game. Despite their 1-3 start to the season, they are shooting 47-percent from the field as a team in those contests.

Tipoff is set for 9 p.m. Friday.

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