The West Virginia basketball program is starting to piece together what the upcoming schedule will look like this season under new head coach Darian DeVries.
The Mountaineers are set to play 20 games in the Big 12 Conference this coming campaign according to Kansas head coach Bill Self which you have to imagine was decided at the league’s annual meetings.
And while the complete list of league matchups and dates won’t be released until sometime closer toward the start of the season the number of games is a jump up from what the Big 12 played last year.
During the 2023-24 season, the league played 18 conference games and used a model where teams played five opponents twice and the eight other opponents once to provide at least one meeting with each team in the conference. That was a solid structure but will need to be adjusted.
It remains to be seen how this year’s slate with look with the Big 12 increasing its membership to 16 teams with the addition of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah but some sort of hybrid formula is expected to eventually get to the layout of 10 home and 10 away games.
That is going to be a challenge given the difficulty of the Big 12 from top to bottom which could affect how the Mountaineers piece together the remaining non-conference slate. And with 20 games occupied there isn’t a lot of wiggle room but how the non-conference slate comes together will be interesting.
Right now, only a handful of those games and dates are booked. The opener for DeVries in the Coliseum is set for Nov. 4 against Robert Morris, which is the level of game you’d expect in that situation. Others are Nov. 20 against Iona and Dec. 22 versus Mercyhurst.
The jewel of the non-conference schedule for the Mountaineers will be the scheduled trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas where they will play three games over a three-day period beginning Nov. 27 against either Arizona, Davidson, Gonzaga, Indiana, Louisville, Oklahoma and Providence. That is some elite competition but the trip to Bahamas is considered one of the premier multi-team events in the sport.
West Virginia also is set to host Georgetown Dec. 6 in the final edition of the Big 12-Big East Battle. While the Mountaineers also have a scheduled trip to Pittsburgh as part of the four-year extension of the Backyard Brawl that was announced in late January although that date has yet to be set.
West Virginia will travel to Pittsburgh in 2024 and 2026, while they will host the game in 2025 and 2027 with the Mountaineers holding a 101-89 lead in the series.
That leaves just a handful of games to be worked out to fill out the non-conference slate and the majority of those are likely going to be in Morgantown as the Mountaineers look to put the finishing touches on what the first year under DeVries is going to look like from a competition standpoint.
With 20 games against Big 12 opponents, the three-games against the competition in the Bahamas, a trip to Pittsburgh against a long term rival and hosting another traditional rival in Georgetown that’s at least 28 games booked that should prove to be challenging for this team.
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