West Virginia is entering a critical portion of the schedule in terms of their effort toward building their resume for a potential berth in the NCAA Tournament.
The Mountaineers sit 15-10 overall and 6-8 in the Big 12 Conference but still remain in the tournament field largely due to a resume without any significant blemishes.
West Virginia is 5-7 in quadrant one games on the year, essentially the top matchups on the schedule, and has yet to sustain a loss in the quadrant three or four brackets indicating no bad losses on the resume. That certainly helps when looking at where this team is at with what’s left on the schedule.
But this team still has work left to do if they want to secure a berth to the Big Dance in the first season under head coach Darian DeVries. Especially when you consider the Mountaineers have lost six of their last eight games as the Big 12 schedule has progressed.
That would be quite the accomplishment in itself considering that West Virginia was already with a short rotation and has been dealt some bad blows on the injury front with senior forward Tucker DeVries only playing eight games and senior guard Jayden Stone never suiting up in a regular season game due to injuries. That has essentially shortened the rotation to eight players in Big 12 play.
Those quadrant one wins play well in terms of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, but the Mountaineers are entering a pivotal stretch where stacking wins is a must.
West Virginia has six games remaining in the regular season and then whatever unfolds in the Big 12 Tournament to further bolster their case. Between those six games, three of those will be at home and three on the road with Cincinnati at home this coming week then a trip to Texas Tech.
Then there is a home game against TCU before back-to-back road trips to BYU and Utah before closing the regular season at home against UCF.
The Mountaineers have already beaten Cincinnati on the road as well as knocking off Utah at home, but the upcoming slate is a golden opportunity for this team to get that magic number of 19 wins which should put the basketball program safely in the field given their resume.
Looking at what’s remaining the Cincinnati game would be a quadrant two opportunity, the Texas Tech game is a quadrant one, TCU would be a quadrant three, BYU a quadrant one, Utah a quadrant two and UCF would be a quadrant two opportunity. That’s some real chances to put the icing on the cake.
It goes without saying that finding a way to protect the home court and win those games while stealing at least one on the road is the easiest pathway, especially with the positioning of the games.
But those two quadrant one chances also present major opportunities for this team as well.
West Virginia has to take this with a game-by-game approach but the time is now for this team to start to string together some wins in order to close the year strong.
“The thing that does matter is you've got to find ways to continue to get wins, and that's our primary focus, and that's the game-by-game mentality,” DeVries said.
The blueprint is there for a trip to the tournament now it’s about getting it done.
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