Tailspinning Mountaineers Fall Out of Top 25

For the first time in nearly three months, the West Virginia Mountaineers are not ranked in the newest AP Top 25 Poll.

The Mountaineers lost to both Texas and Oklahoma last week, forming a three-game losing streak after also losing to TCU the week before. WVU has now lost six of its last seven games and has only two games left in the regular season.

The Mountaineers will close out the regular season with a game at Iowa State Tuesday and their final home game against Baylor Saturday.

In this week’s AP Poll, the Kansas Jayhawks remain at No. 1 while Baylor dropped to No. 4. West Virginia, Texas Tech and Oklahoma all received votes.

WVU is currently in a tie for sixth place with TCU in the Big 12 standings with identical 7-9 conference records. Sixth place is the final team that does not have to play a game on the first day of the Big 12 Tournament. The tiebreaker would first be head-to-head, which is also a tie since the teams split their season series.

The next tie-breaker is the best overall win, which TCU would hold right now. The Horned Frogs defeated Baylor over the weekend while WVU’s best win would be Texas Tech. West Virginia does play the Bears in its regular-season finale, however. If WVU were to defeat Baylor on Saturday the teams would be tied again.

The next tie-breaker would be road record. Both teams have won only one Big 12 road game this year with one road game left for each team. Mentioned previously, West Virginia’s final road game is against Iowa State while TCU plays at Kansas Wednesday. A win in Lawrence would secure the sixth spot for TCU.

The next tie-breaker after that would be the best overall road win. WVU would hold the edge there with a win at Oklahoma State whereas TCU’s road win came over last-place Kansas State.