Is WVU Back on Track? - WVU Football, WVU Basketball, News - Mountaineer Sports

The West Virginia University men's basketball team handed Pitt just its 18^th loss in the history of the Petersen Events Center last week. It was an 18-point decisive victory.

As the Mountaineers were smiling and walking off the floor, Senior Guard Truck Bryant yelled "We're Back".

WVU had lost five of its previous six games prior to that win at Pitt. Can one game get a team "back" on track?

"This is one of the toughest environments in the Big East," Bryant said. "This is a good feeling and definitely lets you know that you are back. This is a big win for us."

"We played hard this whole game," Senior Forward Kevin Jones said. "We got to realize when we play hard we're a very tough team to beat and we can beat anyone in the country."

There would be no better time to get back on track than the present. West Virginia is believed to be in the NCAA Tournament with some work to do to remain that way. At 17-10 overall and 7-7 in the Big East, WVU is sitting in eighth place.

Head Coach Bob Huggins keeps telling his team they need to get to 10 Big East wins. That means the Mountaineers have to win three of their remaining four games if they want to get to 10 wins prior to the Big East Tournament.

"This was a big win, but it's not the end," Senior Forward Kevin Jones said. "We can't be satisfied with just this one. We got to win a lot more games."

WVU will visit Notre Dame Wednesday night. Winning at the Petersen Event Center is not something many visiting teams have experienced. The same can be said about Notre Dame's home floor.

"They just came into Morgantown and took a game from us like Pitt did," Bryant said. "That is just something we got in the back of our heads."

"We got another hard road game at Notre Dame," Jones said. "Nobody wins in there. We got to try and win in another hostile environment like this one was at Pitt."

If in fact WVU is back on track, then the Mountaineers can still do a lot to help themselves. Between some quality opponents remaining on the Big East schedule and the difficult opponents waiting in the Big East tournament, a good seed in the NCAA tournament is still a possibility.

Wednesday's game at Notre Dame will go a long way towards determining if WVU is back on track.