West Virginia basketball looking to win on the road at Oklahoma

No. 13 West Virginia will be looking to do something it hasn’t done in over a month Saturday when the Mountaineers travel to Oklahoma.

That’s get a win on the road.

The basketball program has lost its past two road trips to Kansas State and Texas Tech but this opportunity with the 14-8 Sooners will provide a chance to change that narrative.

West Virginia is a perfect 15-0 at home and on neutral floors this season but is 3-4 in true road games with those two aforementioned losses as well as trip ups at Kansas and St. John’s.

Obviously there is no shame in dropping games in Allen Fieldhouse or in Lubbock, but in order to push themselves up the seeding line for the NCAA Tournament the Mountaineers are going to have to find a way on the road.

There’s obvious reasons for why it’s more difficult than doing it in the confines of your own gym.

“I think familiarity has a lot to do with it. Guys just feel more comfortable at home, more confident at home,” head coach Bob Huggins said.

If the Mountaineers want to attempt to challenge for a Big 12 title, they must find a way to get over the hump on the road with the basketball program already sitting at three losses in the league. This was a year after West Virginia did not win a single Big 12 road game.

So there should be a sense that this team certainly hasn’t arrived despite the 18-4 start to the year. The head coach made sure to enforce that with a tough practice earlier in the week after a lackadaisical effort at times in the second half in the win over Iowa State.

“You're talking about at least half of our team that took multiple, multiple ass-whoopings a year ago. I don't know how they could,” he said.

But according to Huggins there are some more difficulties for a West Virginia club that also has the added weight of traveling greater distances for each of their nine conference opponents. Take the upcoming Oklahoma trip for example, the Mountaineers will take a two-hour flight and then bus for another hour in order to get to Norman.

“By the time you get there what do you do?” he said.

The plan was to sit down, get a bite to eat and watch some film before having a shoot around the next morning in order to prepare for the contest against the Sooners. It’s a big difference between the old road trips to Pittsburgh or Georgetown but it is the nature of where the program finds itself as a member of the Big 12 Conference on an island from the other members.

The Sooners have three players that average double-figure scoring with forward Brady Manek leading the way at 16 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, as well as guard Austin Reaves at 14.6 points and forward Kristian Doolittle at 14.1 points and 9.0 rebounds per contest.

Oklahoma presents a challenge with how they are able to determine matchups and take advantage.

“Lon (Kruger) does a great job of finding mismatches,” Huggins said.

Huggins does not expect West Virginia to have the services of sophomore guard Sean McNeil after he also missed the Iowa State game due to illness.

Tip-off is set for 2 p.m.

----------

• 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