WVU looks to right its ship with No. 3 Kansas coming to town

MORGANTOWN — It may be nothing more than some sort of twist of fate that currently has No. 3 Kansas at the top of the Big standings, while WVU sits at the bottom.

A play that goes right for one team and wrong for the other, or maybe a referee’s call or a shot that bounces in for one and bounces out for the other.

While the Jayhawks (13-1, 2-0 Big 12) have to look a long way down the league standings before finding the Mountaineers (10-4, 0-2), WVU players believe there’s not that much separation between the two teams.

WVU STATS
KANSAS STATS

“Their first two league games, Oklahoma State was up on them big and they found a way to come back in that game,” WVU guard Erik Stevenson said. “They went to Texas Tech and squeaked that one out as well. They could be 0-2 just like us.

“The ball bounced their way in certain moments. I credit that to how hard they play.”

It’s along those lines the Mountaineers see Saturday’s 6 p.m. game inside the Coliseum against the Jayhawks as opportunity, rather than an us-against-the-world theater.

Rather than David vs. Goliath, the Mountaineers see spots where they have the advantage, even with starting point guard Kedrian Johnson missing the game after suffering a concussion last week against Oklahoma State.

“I think we like our match-ups going into this game,” Stevenson said. “If we play the way we’re capable of playing and we stay out of foul trouble, we can win any game in this league and win any game in America.”

There are variables to overcome, like the Jayhawks’ recent dominance of the series, winning their last three games against WVU by an average of 21 points.

Not having Johnson in the starting lineup takes away one of WVU’s top defenders and puts more responsibility on Joe Toussaint, who is expected to take Johnson’s place.

It will be Toussaint’s first start at WVU, but he did start 41 times over his three-year career at Iowa.

“The team isn’t too concerned about it. He’s a veteran point guard,” Stevenson said of Toussaint. “He’s played in the Big Ten and he’s beat some really good Big Ten teams. He knows how to win. We’re trying to keep him as confident as he can be in himself.”

Kansas, too, has obstacles it must overcome, beginning with a lack of size to match up with WVU power forward Jimmy Bell Jr. down low.

Bell, listed at 6-foot-10 and 285 pounds, is at least two inches taller and 60 pounds heavier than anyone Kansas will have in its starting five.

If the game is allowed to be played with a physical tone, as WVU’s first two conference games were, the advantage could go to the Mountaineers.

“I think I can say this without getting into trouble, but there’s more than 10 guys out there deciding the game,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “So, it has a lot to do with that.”

If it becomes a free-throw battle, as bad as WVU has been lately, going a combined 37 of 66 at the line over the last two games, Kansas has been worse.

The Jayhawks enter the game 10th in the Big 12 in free-throw shooting, connecting on just 68.6% at he line.

And foul trouble could be more of an issue for the Jayhawks, whose starting five account for 81% of the team’s scoring and 75% of the minutes played.

“That would be huge. That would be ideal to get them into foul trouble,” Stevenson said. “Especially with their bigs. Those guys handle a lot of defensive responsibilities and rebounding responsibilities. If we get those guys out of the game or out of their rhythm, it would help us.”

More than anything else, the Mountaineers are looking to put together their first complete performance in Big 12 play this season.

They started strong against Kansas State, but didn’t play well in the second half, and then got off to a slow start against Oklahoma State.

“We’ve got to cut down the dumb things,” Huggins said. “We’ve got good-enough players that they shouldn’t be doing the dumb things that’s happening. The forced passes, the bad passes, the defensive breakdowns, those kinds of things. They really need cleaned up.”

TWEET @bigjax3211