WVU Slides to 14 AP Poll After Weekend Loss

After being upset by a Kansas State team with a losing record Saturday afternoon the West Virginia basketball team did not see a major fall in this week’s AP Top-25 Poll.

The Mountaineers dropped only two spots, from No. 12 to No. 14. In the midweek game, WVU defeated TCU handily at home.

This week the Mountaineers will face Texas on Monday and Missouri on Saturday as part of the SEC-Big 12 Challenge. Both games will be at the WVU Coliseum.

The biggest move in the AP Poll this week came from Big 12 foe Baylor who jumped Gonzaga to take the top spot on the list. Kansas also moved up from No. 6 to No. 3. The only other Big 12 team ranked is Texas Tech, who moved up from No. 23 to No. 18.

This is the sixth week West Virginia has spent in the top-25 this season. The team broke in at No. 25 before moving up to 22 and 16 in consecutive weeks. A loss at Kansas pushed the Mountaineers down to No. 17 but a pair of conference wins jumped them to 12 last week.

WVU continues to have the best defense in the Big 12, allowing conference low opponents shooting percentages of 36.2% from the floor and 25.1% from three. The team also allows the third-least amount of points per game in the conference, 60.7.

Powered by big men Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe, the Mountaineers also still lead the conference in rebounding (41.2 per game), offensive rebounds (14.2) and rebounding margin (8.1). Tshiebwe and Culver are first and second in the BIg 12 in rebounding at 9.4 and 9.3 rebounds per game, respectively. Tshiebwe leads in offensive rebounds, averaging 4.2 per game.

Monday’s game against Texas will tip-off at 7 p.m. and Saturday’s contest against Missouri will start at noon.