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If West Virginia wants to keep alive its four-year streak of NCAA Tournament appearances the Mountaineers are going to have to do something they haven’t done since joining the Big 12 Conference.

Win four games in four days to claim the conference tournament title.

A long shot, sure, but a shot nonetheless.

A tall task for a team sitting at 12-19 on the season and last place in the league but the Mountaineers do have at least a couple things working in their favor. That record won’t matter and this team is approaching the tournament as if they have nothing to lose.

“It’s a new season for us and a new opportunity for us to prove ourselves,” freshman guard Jordan McCabe said. “This season has not been normal; I guess you could say especially with this being a lot of our first seasons here at West Virginia. We’ve gone through a lot of things that are unusual.”

McCabe certainly isn’t wrong.

It’s been anything but a normal season for the predominantly newcomer rotation for the Mountaineers. The amount of available veterans are few and far between at this stage as West Virginia has dealt with injuries which have sidelined Sagaba Konate, players leaving in-season such as what unfolded with Beetle Bolden and even a pair of dismissals in the case of Esa Ahmad and Wesley Harris.

If you combine all of that with new players trying to learn how to play college basketball on the fly then it’s relatively easy to see how West Virginia can find itself at the bottom of the league standings.

But things have started to turn down the stretch with West Virginia winning two of their last four games and being competitive in both of the loses on the road. Those young players have started to grow up some and it’s showing on the floor. Four of the five starters down the stretch weren’t even on the team a year ago and three of those are true freshmen.

That is leading to more productive practices as well and a product that has been much crisper although there are still some growing pains that become abundantly obvious at times.

“We’re close to being where we can play with anybody. We can’t make the mistakes that we make at the end of games but I think that comes with experience,” head coach Bob Huggins said.

The Mountaineers will open Big 12 Tournament play against Oklahoma, a team that West Virginia has already beaten after splitting the regular season series. The Sooners were on the positive end of the last result but the Mountaineers were able to battle back in the second half to get within striking distance.

Tip-off is set for around 9 p.m. and if the Mountaineers want to keep alive any hope of the big dance coming out with a win is a necessity. However, if West Virginia does fall short of its goal it’s becoming clear that the program will likely be appearing in the CBI Tournament.

It’s an idea that the players themselves come up with according to Huggins.

“They like playing. The majority of our team basically has played half a year because they didn’t play that much early on. They’re excited about playing,” he said.

A post-season tournament of any sorts will afford the young nucleus of players a chance to gel together on the floor and work out some of the issues that have caused them to struggle. Then you add on top the trip to Spain this coming August where the players will be able to practice and participate in games and you have a situation where a young team will become seasoned.

“Hopefully we’ll be ready to go when the season rolls around,” Huggins said.

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