WVU travels to Cincinnati to close out the regular season

MORGANTOWN — In the end, there is but one final question to be asked of this WVU men’s basketball team:

What else can possibly happen?

Maybe it was Jesse Edwards who put it best when the WVU center rapidly pondered the list of things that have happened to the Mountaineers (9-21, 4-13 Big 12) this season before admitting that some of them you would only see once about every 10 years or so.

“For us, it was like 10 times in one season,” he continued. “That, obviously, wasn’t great.”

WVU STATS

Forget the coaching change over the summer that saw Josh Eilert take over for longtime coach Bob Huggins.

Forget the decision Eilert made early in his tenure to dismiss guard Jose Perez for a violation of team rules, or RaeQuan Battle’s court battle with the NCAA for his eligibility.

Forget the NCAA suspension of Kerr Kriisa for nine games or Edwards’ wrist injury that cost him a month of the season.

All of that, in itself, is enough for a novel, yet the list of oddities just never stopped piling up for WVU.

It’s a team that has gone four full months now without winning any sort of game away from home, something it could change at 2 p.m. Saturday, when the Mountaineers travel to Cincinnati (17-13, 6-11) to end the regular season.

It’s a team that has shot a combined 54% from the field over the last two games, and still lost both games by a combined 23 points.

It’s a team that has given up 10 or more 3-pointers in a game 10 times this season — including the last three in a row — and saw rival Pitt set a record by knocking down 16 of them in the Coliseum.

PITT!

The Mountaineers held a 20-4 lead against Texas Tech, only to lose by 11 points.

They once trailed Kansas State by 25 points with 13 minutes left, only to come back and send that game into overtime, before losing by four.

Oh, there’s more.

WVU was a double-digit underdog against Kansas … and won, meaning Eilert is the only coach in America who can say he’s undefeated against Jayhawks coach Bill Self.

The Mountaineers lost to both Monmouth and Radford — they are a combined 33-30 this season — yet beat No. 25 Texas.

And then Texas turned around in the rematch and won by 36, WVU’s worst loss ever in Big 12 play.

If it’s been a season where nothing has gone as planned, it’s also been a season where the unexpected became the expected.

“It seems like it’s happened more often than not against us, where teams are shooting way better,” than their normal, Eilert said.

Which was the case Wednesday, in a 93-81 loss against TCU.

The Horned Frogs are not known for their 3-point shooting, yet came out and hit nine of them in the first half. TCU finished with 11.

And so, the Mountaineers will enter Fifth Third Arena knowing their next setback would set a school record with 22 losses in a season.

What else could WVU possibly know? Likely not much, because each game has been its own journey of a 1,000 miles in many ways.

That journey is now nearing the end, with only the Big 12 tournament left to look forward to.

“That’s all I ask is we don’t quit,” Eilert said. “We keep fighting and battle to the bitter end.”