MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Having lost three of its last four games — all against nationally-ranked competition — the NCAA selection committee still awarded West Virginia with a No.3 seed in the Midwest Region on Sunday for the NCAA tournament.
The Mountaineers will travel to Indianapolis on Monday to begin preparations for their first-round game Friday against Morehead State. Tip is scheduled for 9:50 p.m. at Lucas Oil Stadium and will be aired on truTV.
The Eagles — a small public school located in Kentucky — finished 23-7 and won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament with an 86-71 victory against Belmont.
“I’m pleased with the seed where we are,” said WVU head coach Bob Huggins, who will be going for his 900th career win in the game. “I’m getting ready to go home and watch about four or five Morehead games and then I can fill you in a little better.”
The winner of the WVU-Morehead State game will play the winner of the San Diego State-Syracuse match-up on Sunday.
Illinois was the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Region and Houston was the No. 2 seed.
According to the selection committee’s seeding list — where all 68 teams were ranked from No. 1 to 68 — the Mountaineers (18-9) were No. 10 overall and the highest-ranked team that did not finish with at least 20 victories.
That put WVU as the second-ranked No. 3 seed and the second-highest ranked team from the Big 12, despite getting knocked out in the conference tournament’s quarterfinals by Oklahoma State on Thursday.
The Mountaineers strength of schedule may have played a part in that.
According to the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), WVU played the second-toughest schedule in the country and the Mountaineers ended the season playing seven AP Top 25 teams over their final 10 games.
WVU is ranked No. 23 in the NCAA NET rankings, which was used to help determine seeding.
“I think the fact that we struggled a bit down the stretch, lose nine games and are a No. 3 seed, I think that bodes well for what we played,” Huggins said. “I think we played as good a schedule as virtually anybody has.”
The same could not be said of Morehead State, which has won 19 of its last 20 games.
“The first thing that comes to my mind is they didn’t play in the Big 12,” Huggins said. “A bit of a difference.”
Morehead State went 0-3 against Power Five Conference teams during the season, losing to Kentucky, Ohio State and Clemson.
The Eagles were ranked No. 56 overall by the selection committee and were No. 122 in the NET.
Morehead State is led by 6-foot-10 freshman Johni Boome, who was the Ohio Valley’s Freshman of the Year after averaging 13.9 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.
The Eagles are a defensive-minded club for head coach Preston Spradlin, a former assistant for John Calipari at Kentucky.
Morehead State held opponents to 40.3% shooting from the floor, 31st in the country, and opponents were held to an average of 63 points per game.
WVU is 3-0 all-time against the Eagles. The last time the two teams met was in 2011 at the Charleston Civic Center.
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