Last Time Out

A loss, which has sort of been a theme of the season unfortunately. The Clones fell to Okie State 73-61 in a barely contested effort by Iowa State. Bolton led Iowa State in scoring with 16 on 5/14 shooting and (surprisingly) 5/5 FT’s. The Cowpokes were headed up by Cameron McGriff’s 19 points. Losing the turnover battle (17-15) and shooting at a 40% clip led Iowa State down a slippery slope to a swift loss.

About West Virginia

Last year’s rebuild aside, Coach Huggins has this West Virginia squad where he always does. The Mountaineers enter tonight looking to add their 20th win overall (8th conference win) to their resume for March. Even coming into tonight’s match-up in Hilton on a three game skid, West Virginia will be hungry for that 20 win mark and the potential to climb into the top half of the Big 12. (Crazy to think they’re sixth right now.)

Player To Watch

Wanna know something crazy about this West Virginia team? Only two players have an average points per game in double digits. Outside of Tshiebwe (11.1) and Culver (10.3) everyone else averages in single digits. As for the player to watch, it has to be Derek Culver however. His 18 point effort two weeks ago in an O.T. loss to (surprisingly) TCU was on 8/14 shooting over the 37 minutes played. He then followed that up with a 5/8 12 point performance in a loss against Texas two days later. His efficient scoring will be key for West Virginia.

What Will Happen

Who knows? Honestly on a night like tonight anything is possible. There’s certainly a road map where Tre Jackson, Rasir, and Solomon all come out and play at 110% for the seniors and everything clicks and Jacobson remembers that a deep contested 2 is the worst shot in basketball. The transition offense flows, buckets are easy, Conditt is getting open dunks, hey it could happen right? Grill has the offensive game we’ve all been waiting for, Lewis gets to use new pair of Kyries for longer than 4 minutes — Point is, there is a path to victory.

But I doubt it.

West Virginia - 74

Iowa State- 62

Pick Three

1- Tre Jackson remains my favorite player to watch

2- Jacobson sticks his tongue out like he’s a Gene Simmons mask

3- Grill gets a crazy amount of minutes for an unexplained reason

Game Notes

The Matchup: Iowa State (12-17, 5-11 Big 12) vs. West Virginia (19-10, 7-9 Big 12)

Line: WVU -6

Where: Ames, Iowa - Hilton Coliseum (14,384)

When: Tuesday, March. 3, 8 p.m. (CST)

Radio: Cyclone Radio Network/TuneIn RadioTalent: John Walters (PxP), Eric Heft (Analyst)

TV: ESPNU

Webcast: WatchESPN

Sirius/XM/Internet: NA/381/971 (internet)

Live Stats: Cyclonestats.com