West Virginia Looks To Stop Two Game Skid Against Texas

The Mountaineers have a chance to right the ship, but it sounds like they’ll be without the services of Theodore Tiberius Buckets, Esq. once again.

By Michael Miller@uncle_drank Jan 20, 2018, 9:00am EST

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

NCAA Basketball: Big 12 Championship-West Virginia vs Texas

WHEN/WHERE

Date: Saturday, January 20th, 2018

Tip-Off Time: 2:00 PM ET

Where: WVU Coliseum, Morgantown, “Almost Heaven” West Virginia

WATCH/LISTEN

TV: CBS

Streaming Video: CBS All Access

Radio: Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG (Radio Affiliates)

Streaming Audio: Locate the Mountaineers Sports Network from IMG on TuneIn Radio (or the TuneIn app for smartphones)

Satellite Radio: SiriusXM 84

ODDS

Spread: West Virginia -9

O/U: 137.5

THE ENEMY

Where are they from? Austin, Texas

Series History: Texas leads the all-time series 8-7

Last Time: No. 11 West Virginia 63, Texas 53 on March 9, 2017 in Kansas City, Missouri (Big 12 Tournament)

SB Nation Blog: Burnt Orange Nation

Record: 12-6 (3-3 Big 12)

Record in 2016-17: 11-22 (4-14 Big 12)

Head Coach: Shaka Smart (3rd Season)

KEYS TO THE GAME

Stay out of foul trouble. I’m just going to leave this as my #1 key to the game for every game, because it will always apply in this conference. I know this isn’t entirely something we can control (hello, John Higgins), but we need to do whatever we can to make sure we don’t leave it up to the officials.
Keep the offense going. This is what killed us against Kansas on Monday. Something happened after the half, and any semblance of an offense went right out the window. West Virginia only scored 25 points in the second half, and jacked up about 9000 3-pointers in that loss. Let’s not do that.

HOW AFRAID SHOULD WE BE (ON A SCALE OF 1-10)?

Seven. I’m more afraid of the reaction from our fans if we lose than I am of the Longhorns, but we’ll just package it all together and go with what, I guess, would be classified as an “elevated alert.” West Virginia needs to win this one, badly. You can’t drop too many home contests and expect to be in the title picture at the end of the season.

PREDICTION THAT WILL BE WRONG

I predict this one will be an ugly game. Not ugly in the sense that one team is going to just annihilate the other, but in the sense that both teams are going to shoot something like 24% from the field and there’s a million fouls. West Virginia wins, and we narrowly avoid our fanbase melting down into total disarray from a third straight loss.

West Virginia 68, Texas 61