MORGANTOWN -
It does not take a seasoned basketball analyst to take a look at West Virginia's team for much of the season and see a group of athletes lacking confidence.
When things aren't going well, as they tend to do much of the time when you pile up 11 losses through 23 outings, shoulder slump, heads hang low and the confident bunch that packed its bags for Spokane to begin the season is brought swiftly back to earth.
It's a trend that continued for the Mountaineers throughout the non-conference slate that head coach Bob Huggins had strung together and when Big 12 play got underway, it was too late to go back and inject some of that good feeling that propelled the team through the offseason.
"You wonder about that," Huggins admitted this week. "I think if you look at our preseason schedule, when you open at Gonzaga, that obviously is hard. I think our next games were down in Orlando in that tournament, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. I just wonder sometimes how much you get out of winning by 40, other than getting a bunch of people playing time who ordinarily don't get it."
Huggins has always been of the opinion that you build a resume through your schedule and in order to be in good standing when Selection Sunday rolls around, you beat those teams that will be dancing in March.
But if you lose the matchups, you forfeit one of the most important stats involved in the science of bracketology: wins.
West Virginia sits at .500 in the Big 12, with the seventh-best RPI and the fifth-best strength of schedule, which is No. 52 nationally.
With the conference play in full swing and nearing completion, the Mountaineers have only gotten wins over teams that sit lower than them in the overall standings. They did it in successive games, though, and now they face the team that is just one spot higher in Baylor.
"In all honesty, we've been so close," Huggins says. "We were really close to beating Kansas State here. We were really close to beating Iowa State, we just never really got over the hump and finished a game."
The Mountaineers let Texas stay closer than they would have liked the last time they played at home, but wins over Texas Tech and TCU were hardly ever in question. They looked good, they got their offense moving and connecting and many individuals had their most impressive outings of the season.
None of those teams remain on the schedule, though. From this point on, all opponents are ranked Nos. 1-6 in the conference, all ahead of WVU.
"Hopefully we have enough confidence now," Huggins says. "We're still so young in the back court, particularly. When you play two freshmen and three sophomores, we've still got a lot of youth there and I think they're growing up."
True, the play of freshmen guards Eron Harris and Terry Henderson has been a major bright spot for the Mountaineers and sparked an offense that had been dismal for much of the season prior to their real emergence.
With those two contributing 16.5 points combined per game, the offense is beginning to hold up its end of the bargain compared to a defense that has largely carried the team through hard times.
"I think all year long, they've been very solid defensively and very good on the boards. I think their offense has picked it up," Baylor coach Scott Drew said of his next opponent. "They've got a couple guys now making more shots and playing a little more than they did earlier in the year and when you add that to good defense and good rebounding, that's what gets you wins. Coach Huggins is always going to have his guys ready to be in a position to win; it normally comes down to if the players are making shots."
Drew must listen in to Huggins' press conferences with that last remark, because that is precisely what the Mountaineers coach says each week. Now, his ton has changed a bit. He has seen his team shoot 51.6 percent from the field in its last three games and should a trend like that continue, so will the victories.
The next chance to put those shooting numbers to the test will be Wednesday night when the Mountaineers take on the Bears from Waco, Texas at 9 p.m.
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