MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia point guard Jordan McCabe was a part of last season’s squad that entered the Big 12 tournament as the 10 seed, needing to win four games to reach the conference title game in Kansas City, Mo.
While it started well with upsets of Oklahoma and Texas Tech, the Mountaineers finally ran out of gas in the semifinals against Kansas.
“We know from last year what it’s like to play that many games in the conference tournament and we don’t want to be in that same position,” McCabe said following Monday night’s 67-57 loss at Texas. “We’re going to have to regroup and get ready to be back on our home floor and get back to doing what we do.”
The Mountaineers (19-9, 7-8 Big `12) have now lost five of their last six games, and while there isn’t much fear about sitting on the NCAA tournament bubble, the potential seeding has steadily decreased over the course of the last three weeks. According to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, WVU sits as a 5 seed, but that doesn’t include the loss to the Longhorns.
Not only is the NCAA tournament seed in question, the Big 12 tournament seed is also something the Mountaineers are beginning to worry about. With three games remaining in the regular season, WVU currently sits tied for fourth place with a 7-8 Big 12 record, but it’s just one game off the pace of falling to the not-so-desirable 7 seed.
With 10 teams in the conference, the bottom four teams open the tournament against each other to get the field to eight, so they play one extra game than the top six teams.
Depending on how the regular season winds up, beginning with Saturday’s match-up with Oklahoma at the Coliseum, the Mountaineers could find themselves in the dubious position of needing to play an extra game in the Big 12 tournament, set for March 11-14 in Kansas City.
Mathematically, the highest WVU can finish in the Big 12 standings is 3rd behind Baylor or Kansas, and the lowest is 9th, ahead of last-place Kansas State.
With the final three games — Oklahoma, at Iowa State and at home vs. Baylor — coach Bob Huggins wants to see his team make shots, which it hasn’t done during WVU’s tough stretch, dating back to the loss at Oklahoma on Feb. 8. Against Texas, the Mountaineers shot 44% from the field and a dismal 27% from three.
Those numbers were still an improvement over last Saturday’s loss at TCU, where West Virginia shot 40% from the field and 11% (2 of 17) from beyond the arc.
In the last six games, the Mountaineers are also 62 of 103 (61%) from the free-throw line.
“They’re making shots. We’re not,” Huggins said. “This game is about making shots — they made shots and we can’t. When you’ve missed as many shots as we’ve missed … we were 3 of our last 32 (from 3) coming into the game and then you continue to clank balls off the front of the rim, it’s demoralizing. It kind of zaps your energy and your enthusiasm. When you’re making shots, you play harder.”
