West Virginia And Penn State Set To Face Off In Charity Exhibition For Hurricane Relief

OPENING THOUGHTS

We’ve got a big day ahead of us today, folks, and it’s kicking off at noon when Bob Huggins’ West Virginia Mountaineers welcome the NIT Champion Penn State Nittany Lions to Morgantown for a charity exhibition game with proceeds going to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief.

If you’re in the Morgantown/Fairmont/Clarksburg area and don’t have any plans before the football game starts at 3:30PM, you have no reason to not be in the WVU Coliseum at noon to get a sneak peak at the 2018-19 Press Virginia squad. If you’re not in the area, THE GAME IS TELEVISED!

Let’s hang out today. We’ll have our usual GameThread for this game going up at 11:30AM, so join us in the comments there and stick around through the football game.

Most importantly

WHEN/WHERE

Date: Saturday, November 3rd

Tip-Off Time: Noon ET

Where: WVU Coliseum, Morgantown, West Virginia

WATCH/LISTEN

TV: AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh

Streaming Video: Fans outside the AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh viewing area can watch the game on WVUSports.com

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)

ODDS

There are no betting odds for matchup. What kind of miscreant would bet on a charity exhibition game anyway?

THE ENEMY

Where are they from? University Park, Pennsylvania

Series History: West Virginia leads the all-time series 66-53

Last Time: Penn State Nittany Lions 66, West Virginia Mountaineers 63 on January 31, 1991 in Morgantown

SB Nation Blog: Black Shoe Diaries

Record: 0-0

Record in 2017-18: 21-13 (9-9 Big 10), NIT Tournament Champions

Head Coach: Pat Chambers (7th Season)

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

KEYS TO THE GAME

• Experiment. In a game that’s basically just another scrimmage with a Big 10 team (we played Purdue in another top secret scrimmage last week), there’s no reason to not give everyone a chance to see the court. Try out some different combinations to see who meshes well with each other.
• Have fun. Use this game to get any preseason nerves out of your system and just enjoy playing a game without any consequence. Let Sagaba Konate work on that three-point range some more. Let Jordan McCabe come in and go full Jason Williams on us and turn this thing into an AND1 Mixtape. There’s no reason not to have fun with this one today.
• Don’t get injured. This is probably self-explanatory. We don’t need someone injuring themselves before the season actually starts.

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

Zero. This is an exhibition game and has no impact on the 2018-19 West Virginia basketball season. Watch the game while you wait for the Mountaineers to kickoff in Austin, Texas at 3:30PM and get a sneak peak at what we’ll be seeing with the actual season starts next Friday night against the Buffalo Bulls. As long as no one gets injured, everyone wins in this game.

PREDICTION THAT WILL BE WRONG

I’m hoping this game just turns into an NBA All-Star type game, and is just both teams taking turns shooting threes and throwing down dunks. This game is for a great cause, and everyone should just have fun with it.

West Virginia 89, Penn State 83