12/30/2016 basketball Edit

WVU set to open Big 12 play at Oklahoma State

Keenan Cummings • WVSports

Managing Editor

West Virginia opens Big 12 Conference play today on the road at Oklahoma State and with that comes a sense of familiarity for both the coaches and players alike.

Now in the fifth year in the Big 12 Conference round-robin schedule, the Mountaineers will leave the non-conference portion and dive into the chase for a league crown.

But what does the start of conference play mean?

“Familiarity I think is one. The other one is I think the players think it’s more important. I think in their minds there is a lot more riding on it and to a degree there is,” head coach Bob Huggins said.

That will be evident on Friday at 4 p.m. when West Virginia opens up on the road against an Oklahoma State team that is expected to be sold out. Huggins expects that to be the norm moving forward.

“Football is over and basketball has kind of started, even if some of the players’ minds,” he said.

For Huggins the familiarity with Cowboys head coach Brad Underwood is evident. The first-year head man of Oklahoma State served as an assistant under Huggins during his time at Kansas State and there is a strong understanding of what each are trying to accomplish with their teams.

Last season at Stephen F. Austin, Underwood engineered an upset over the No. 3 seed Mountaineers in the second round of the NCAA tournament. In that game, the Lumberjacks frustrated West Virginia early and often while the Mountaineers struggled to generate any success.

“We talked for quite a while afterwards. It was about a lot of stuff. I’ve been very open and honest – I don’t think our guys took them serious,” Huggins said.

Now Underwood is sitting on career win 99, but Huggins hopes that his 100th isn’t today.

“He ought to wait a game,” Huggins said.

In his first year atop the Oklahoma State program, Underwood has the Cowboys sitting at 10-2 led by sophomore guard Jawun Evans, who averages 20.2 points and 4.6 assists. One of the premier guards in the Big 12 Conference, Evans has taken a significant leap in his second year at the college level.

“The guy knows how to score. He doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses. He can make threes, he can pull up and make shots and he’s terrific going to the basket,” Huggins said.