Tournament Projection for West Virginia Mens Team

A month ago fans and media alike had the West Virginia Men’s Basketball team as a number one seed in the tournament with a good shot at the Pittsburgh Region. Since that time WVU has had issues finishing games and has went seven-and-six over its last 13 games. During this stretch Press Virginia has had issues defending as well as the offense going MIA at crucial times.

With all that being said WVU still sits at 19-7 overall. The 20th ranked Mountaineers have five games remaining on the schedule to try to move back up in the rankings which will increase their tournament seeding.

WVU enters today with an RPI of 35 and Strength of Schedule of 59, both of those numbers are expected to increase over the remainder of the season.

Joe Lunardi currently has WVU as a five seed in the Midwest bracket. If this projection stays true, their opening game would be played in Boise, Idaho against Loyola-Chicago with a second round potential matchup against Ohio State. To no ones surprise Kentucky is also listed in this bracket as well as Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Texas. Xavier currently sits as the number one seed with Auburn as the number two.

Taking a deeper look into WVU’s tournament resume.  The Mountaineers have five wins against RPI top 50 and five wins against the RPI top 100. The rest of their wins are against teams with a RPI of 150 or above. As far as their seven loses, five have came against the RPI top 50 and two against the RPI top 100.

With a strong finish and a good showing in Kansas City in the Big XII tournament WVU could see their seeding rise closer to what many were projecting a month ago.