Kansas at West Virginia Basketball Preview
The Kansas Jayhawks already have one road victory in a tough environment this week and now will look to cap off this road trip with a win inside WVU Coliseum against the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Opponent Overview
Team: West Virginia
Record: 6-11
KenPom: 140
Line: TBD (KenPom – KU -11)
Team Form
The Mountaineers have had a rough go of it lately. First it was everything involving Bob Huggins and his leaving the program in the offseason. Several players hit the transfer portal in the wake, including Tre Mitchell (now at Kentucky) and Joe Toussaint (now at Texas Tech), and to make matters worse, Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards fractured his wrist in December and has only played in 10 games. And then there’s the Raequan Battle and Kerr Kriisa situations, which we’ll get to below.
WVU has only won two games since Edwards was sidelined – Toledo and Texas at home – and is 1-3 to start Big 12 play. Though the losses are all understandable, coming at the hands of Houston, Kansas State, and Oklahoma, but none of those were by single digits.
Players to Watch
West Virginia did get a win when two-time transfer Raequan Battle was deemed eligible and has been allowed to play in the past seven games. In that time, he’s been leading the team with 19 points and 4.3 rebounds per game while taking nearly 15 shots. He is not much of a threat from three – hitting only 25.6% this year – but he gets to the line seven times per game. Those numbers are a bit inflated by two 29-point games against Radford and Toledo, but is still averaging nearly 13 points per game in Big 12 play.
Forward Pat Suemnick has stepped up as a starter in recent games and has played above what his 4.4 ppg average on the season would show. Suemnick scored 12 against Houston, 16 in the Texas win, and nine on Wednesday against Oklahoma. Coming off the bench is senior forward Quinn Slazinski, who is second on the team (until Edwards comes back) averaging 14.1 points and 4.6 boards, but he’s not efficient, only making 40% of his field goals.
The most heralded transfer this offseason for the Mountaineers was Arizona’s Kriisa, but he was forced to sit out the first nine games of the season after receiving impermissible benefits at Arizona. Over the last eight games he has played, Kriisa is averaging 9.5 points and five assists while shooting 36.5% from three but only 37.5% from the field overall.
Matchups to Watch
The way the game is officiated could have a big impact on the final score of this one. WVU’s offensive metrics are not good. The Mountaineers only make 30.3% of their threes and 47.1% of their twos. However, the area where West Virginia excels is at getting to the foul line. WVU has the No. 1 free-throw rate in the Big 12 in conference play and ranks 53rd in the nation in free-throw attempts per field goal attempts.
On the defensive side, unlike several of KU’s first opponents, West Virginia isn’t big on crashing the offensive boards. But what’s interesting to watch for is the turnover battle. WVU has forced turnovers on only 15.8% of possessions this season, which is 280th nationally. But in Big 12 play, that number skyrockets to 21.2%. The Mountaineers didn’t force more than 11 turnovers in a game in the first eight games of the season and only had one 15+ turnover game before conference play. But in the last two games, Texas turned it over 22 times and Oklahoma 19 times. Kansas needs to look more like the Oklahoma game and less like the UCF game from a turnover perspective.
Prediction
Morgantown is another road game where Kansas has struggled since the Mountaineers joined the conference. Remember, KU lost four straight games in the WVU Coliseum from 2014-2017 and six of eight extending to 2021. But the Jayhawks have won the past two contests and this just isn’t the same Mountaineers team we’ve known for the past decade.
Kansas has played really well since Johnny Furphy entered the starting lineup, and that’s with KU not even shooting that well from three. As long as Kansas continues to take better care of the ball and turns it over 14 or fewer times, I think the Jayhawks have too much offensive firepower.
Kansas 77, West Virginia 62
Record ATS: 9-8
Record Straight Up: 15-2
(Last game: Kansas 90, Oklahoma State 66)
