West Virginia basketball schedule coming together for 2020-21

West Virginia is starting to piece together what the basketball schedule will look like in 2020-21.

The original 31-game slate can effectively be blown up due to COVID-19 and the Mountaineers are working on putting in a new 27-game schedule that will begin sometime around Nov. 24.

Some things remain up in the air as to what the final schedule will look like but there are a few games that are already cemented into place. Well, as much as you can in this very fluid climate.

The Mountaineers will of course play 18 Big 12 Conference games, with a home-and-home with each league member. The Big 12 Conference is expected to announce the layout of those games at some point before the end of October.

Various reports have indicated that the projected schedule reveals that West Virginia would open at home Dec. 18 against Iowa State and then Dec. 22 travel to Kansas for the first two contests.

But with 18 games already locked in, that means that the non-conference schedule will consist of nine games total that the program has to fill but some are already in place.

Two of those will be the Big East/Big 12 battle which was previously announced as the road at Georgetown, while the other will be the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

The Mountaineers also are set to participate in a three-game event in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The event will be played at the Sanford Pentagon and also will feature Ohio State, Creighton, Memphis, Utah, Wichita State, Dayton and Texas A&M. It isn’t set in stone, but it’s likely that three-game event will open the schedule for West Virginia around Thanksgiving.

“I think they’re good to go it’s a matter of waiting on television and the pairings that television wants to see,” West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said.

Unlike most years, there won’t be the benefit of an exhibition or closed scrimmage beforehand.

“I think to most of us the most disturbing thing is they took away a scrimmage from us. Our guys are going to go play three games in three days without ever playing against somebody else,” Huggins said. “I don’t think that’s fair to our guys.”

Another opponent in Richmond traveling to play inside the Coliseum has been reported to be set, but that has not been formally announced by West Virginia. The first home game is expected to be held at some point during the first week of December but that too has yet to be set in stone.

As with all other sports, pre-game virus testing will be required prior to matchups on the hardwood.

One game that won’t be played this year is the Backyard Brawl with Pittsburgh. Huggins announced that the game has been postponed between the two-long time rivals.

“That’s not going to happen this year,” he said.

The challenges of filling the final three slots on the schedule come in the sense that the Mountaineers already had a slate, but it was effectively blown up. And now when trying to find replacements, many teams aren’t even sure of what their conference schedules could look like yet or if they will even have the ability to play non-conference matchups in certain windows.

“It’s been as tough as I can remember doing this in my 43-years,” Huggins said.

Pre-season practice is set to begin Oct. 15 and the program is permitted to hold 30 sessions over 42 days in order to gear up toward the start of the year.

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