WVU’s Big 12 Hoops Schedule Is Set — Here’s What Stands Out

The days are slowly but surely dwindling down to tip-off in Morgantown, and on Thursday, the Big 12 Conference released the league schedule for all 16 teams. Here is what West Virginia's conference slate looks like month-by-month, followed by some of my initial thoughts.

January

Jan. 2: at Kansas
Jan. 5: vs. Oklahoma State
Jan. 9: at Colorado
Jan. 12: vs. Kansas State
Jan. 16: vs. Cincinnati
Jan. 20: at Utah
Jan. 23: at BYU
Jan. 27: vs. Arizona State
Jan. 30: vs. Arizona

February

Feb. 3: at UCF
Feb. 6: vs. Iowa State
Feb. 13: at Texas Tech
Feb. 16: vs. UCF
Feb. 20: at Baylor
Feb. 24: at Cincinnati
Feb. 27: vs. Houston

March

Mar. 3: vs. TCU
Mar 6: at Iowa State

Opening at The Phog? Really???

Obviously, someone has to play Kansas to tip off Big 12 play, but I'm sure Ross Hodge would have preferred not to be the honorary member of the conference to make that first trip there. Oddly enough, the only game West Virginia has ever won in Lawrence was in the conference opener during the 2024-25 season under Darian DeVries.

Weird layout for long trips

It's the Big 12. There's only so much you can do to help the three Eastern Time Zone teams, but still, traveling all the way to Colorado for one game, coming back home, and going all the way back out to Utah for two games eleven days later? Yuck. The one that really doesn't make sense is the two trips out to Texas in one week's time. West Virginia will play at Texas Tech on Feb. 13, come back home for a game against UCF, and then go back out to Texas to play Baylor on the 20th. Ideally, the road games against Tech and Baylor would have been on one of those Saturday and Monday/Tuesday trips.

LIT Saturday home games

Saturday's always draws the best crowds, of course, but man, WVU hit the jackpot with the opponents they will have coming to the Coliseum on the weekend this season. Cincinnati (Jan. 16), Arizona (Jan. 30), Iowa State (Feb. 6), and Houston (Feb. 27) will play in Morgantown on a Saturday, and let's not forget that the non-conference matchup against Virginia Tech (Dec. 5) is also on a Saturday.

Toughest stretch: at Baylor, at Cincinnati, vs. Houston, vs. TCU, at Iowa State

The final five games of the schedule are brutal, especially if Cincinnati turns out to be better than most expect and if TCU keeps the momentum rolling after a 23-win season. Three of these five are on the road and are at incredibly challenging places to play. It does help that WVU gets Houston at home, but ideally, that game would have been a little earlier in the year.

Momentum Opportunity: vs. Oklahoma State, at Colorado, vs. Kansas State, vs. Cincinnati, at Utah

Immediately after the matchup with Kansas, West Virginia enters what I believe to be a pretty manageable five-game stretch against middle- to lower-tier Big 12 teams, with the only two games on the road being Colorado and Utah, who went a combined 27-28 a year ago. Sure, they have new teams too, but the Mountaineers are in a much better position than those two and should be able to go 2-0 or 1-1 at worst in those two road trips.

Add us as a preferred source on Google