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WVU vs Kansas Basketball Preview & How To Watch: Pressing Our Luck

The WVU Mountaineer basketball team looks to try to grab a desperately needed quality win tonight at home against the ten-time Big XII Champs #8 Kansas Jayhawks at 9:00PM ET on ESPN's Big Monday.

Dan Friend-USA TODAY Sports

Game Day Vitals

  • #23 West Virginia Mountaineers (19-6, Big XII 7-5, NCAA RPI 28) vs. #8 Kansas Jayhawks (21-4, Big XII 10-2, NCAA RPI 1)
  • Series Record: 1-3, last matchup was last year's beatdown turned almost awful in Morgantown W 92-86
  • Location: Lyons Den (Capacity: 14,000) Morgantown, West Virginia
  • Vegas Lines: (+2) for the good guys, O/U: 147.5
  • Date: Monday, Feb 16, 2015, 9:00 PM EST
  • Television: ESPN / WatchESPN
  • Radio Affiliates

Opponent Information

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The Interwebs

I don't care how many times I do this in a row. As long as I'm writing the previews, this will always be my go-to for KU:

And...  yep.

Eh, the hell with it. Let's reminisce a little more.














I enjoyed that. Let's talk about the actual game now.

Game Preview

According to the latest NCAA and ESPN RPI rankings, the Kansas Jayhawks are the best, most proven team in the country. KU sits with a #2 seed under Joe Lunardi's bracketology, but Bill Self's squad can easily do work on the rest of their schedule to make up ground of that elusive #1 seed. Either way you look at it, the Jayhawks are one of the nation's premier teams and a contender for the national title. Furthermore, they have the ability to run teams off the court, even the good ones. At the same time, Kansas is not immune to slipping every once and a while.

In fact, the Jayhawks do have an Achilles heel that comes in the form of field goal percentage. Kansas shoots around 44% which lands them at 132nd nationally. The Mountaineers would murder for that kind of average (41.2%, 277th), but this is a key in this game. In three of KU's four losses, they shot less than 40% and one of those defeats was against a stingy, in-your-face Kentucky defense. While West Virginia does not have the athleticism and pure talent that the Wildcats possess, it is not that much of a stretch to believe that the Mountaineers could have a shot at this if Kansas does not respond well to pressure defenses. There is a reason that WVU is first in several national defensive statistics, but the Mountaineers MUST make those turnovers count. Same story as always. If West Virginia does not make shots, this will get ugly. I'm an optimist, so I think the Coliseum will have fun tonight.

Prediction: WVU 78, Kansas 74