COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Since West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2013, the average record for winning the league is 14-4.
In order to get there, the Mountaineers need to finish the season on a 10-1 kick with a schedule that still includes two games against the top team in the country and another against No. 3.
Even if that improbable sequence of events were to play out, you’d still need to find two additional losses on Baylor’s schedule to make the usual 14-4 stand up. And operating under the premise that one of those losses would come to Kansas, you’d then need to find two more teams capable of beating the Jayhawks so they too would go 14-4.
Let’s simplify the equation: none of that is happening.
Following Wednesday night’s loss at Texas Tech, there’s no realistic path to a Big 12 regular-season title for this West Virginia team short of winning out.
Thus, it is time for a midseason reassessment of team goals. If the Mountaineers want to win the Big 12, they need to focus on becoming a good enough team to do so by winning three straight games in Kansas City mid-March. And in order to become that team, the Mountaineers need to figure out how to win away from WVU Coliseum.
“They tell me all the time they want to win the league,” Bob Huggins said following the Texas Tech defeat. “[Then] go win.”
He was specifically talking about winning on the road. Earlier in the week, Huggins was touting the game as a must-win if the Mountaineers were to achieve that stated goal, and he was right.
“When we can go to Lubbock and win, go to Kansas and win despite all the odds, then we’ve arrived,” he said. “Until then, we’re walking uphill.”
The majority of West Virginia’s major contributors — freshmen and sophomores — have yet to get up that hill.
The Mountaineers are 3-14 in true road games the past two seasons, and two of those wins (Pitt and Youngstown State) featured vocal pockets of WVU fans. That leaves this year’s win at Oklahoma State as the lone “hostile” victory picked up by this squad, and it was achieved in front of a crowd at Gallagher-Iba Arena that was around 40 percent capacity at best. That one probably felt like the kind of audience these guys have played in front of at AAU tournaments growing up.
There’s no question the Coliseum is one of the great home-court environments in college basketball. West Virginia has won its past four home games by an average of 26.2 points — all against Big 12 or SEC competition. No one in the country does that. Not Kansas, not Kentucky, not Duke.
Unfortunately, the only home-court advantage advantage that exists in late March occurs when you’re playing in the NIT. And unless the Mountaineers go something like 1-10 the rest of the way, that’s not happening.
The good news is this is a strong neutral-court team. West Virginia is 3-0 on neutral floors this season, and even snuck in a couple wins in last year’s Big 12 tourney despite being a genuinely bad team.
Still, seeding ultimately matters for a team with Final Four aspirations. Since 1979, 20.7 percent of 2-seeds, 11.6 percent of 3-seeds, 8.5 percent of 4-seeds and 4.9 percent of 5-seeds have reached the Final Four. And if West Virginia is going to be a 2- or 3-seed in the NCAA tournament, the Mountaineers need to start winning games in uncomfortable settings.