Where West Virginia Basketball Went Wrong

As the West Virginia men’s basketball team learned its fate on Sunday — no NCAA tournament bid and no NIT spot possible because of the College Basketball Crown tournament — the vitriol poured in from all sides as to why the Mountaineers deserved a bid.

And while West Virginia had some things going for it, the reality is that the Mountaineers left too much on the table. As Seth Davis said during the Selection Show, when you’re that close to the bubble, you get what you get. And the reality is that West Virginia left far too much to chance and cost itself more than the committee did anything to it.

Here’s a look at where West Virginia basketball went wrong.

Mountaineers Fell Flat in February

Really, West Virginia started to slide right after the win over Iowa State. The Mountaineers beat a strong Cyclones squad in Morgantown, and things seemed to be clicking at 13-4.

Their final record was 19-13.

In case you haven’t done the math, that’s a finish of 6-9 to the season. The Mountaineers immediately followed the win over the Cyclones by losing to Arizona State at home, then falling to Kansas State in Manhattan and Houston at home. The loss to the Cougars isn’t a big deal, but a tournament team should beat the Wildcats and must absolutely beat the Sun Devils at home.

At the same time, North Carolina wasn’t losing to bad teams. Say what you will about how weak the ACC was this year — and it was — but the Tar Heels were at least winning those games. Over their final 13 games, the Heels lost four times: three to Duke and once to Clemson. West Virginia lost to Arizona State, TCU, Kansas State and Colorado.

Fairly or unfairly, the committee has always held the “finish strong” card in its back pocket. When the Mountaineers stopped winning games against beatable opposition, they were playing with fire.

The Offense Wasn’t There

The metrics are a relatively new criterion the committee uses to try to get the best teams in the field. And the metrics really, really hate West Virginia’s offense. At Ken Pomeroy’s site, for example, the Mountaineers rank 15th in defensive efficiency and 131st in offensive efficiency. For comparison’s sake, North Carolina ranks 53rd in defense and 22nd in offense and Xavier ranks 44th and 52nd.

The committee wants better games. They also want to get the seeds right, and they’ve struggled with that in recent years. Last year was the first year since 2019 that all of the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds got out of the first round. That’s why the metrics are taking on a greater importance.

West Virginia had too many nights where the offense didn’t do much of anything. You can survive that if you have a great defense, but when other teams offer solid offense and defense, you won’t measure up.

The Mountaineers Didn’t Schedule Well

When you play in a league like the Big 12, there’s reason to believe you can get away with not scheduling tough road games. And the Mountaineers barely scheduled any road games, only going to Pittsburgh and losing by 24.

When you follow that strategy, you better get some road wins in your league. 4-6 isn’t going to cut it when two of the wins were Colorado and Utah. Obviously, people are screaming about North Carolina’s Quad 1 wins, but the Tar Heels also took it upon themselves to go out and play people. They played five neutral court games, hosted Alabama and went to Kansas and Hawaii.

Related: West Virginia Snubbed

And they acquitted themselves well in those games. UNC went 1-1 on the road and its loss was by three. It lost by 15 to Alabama, but that’s still a lot more impressive than beating a weak Georgetown squad. What’s more, they avoided the sugar rush of West Virginia’s slate. The Mountaineers had one stretch where they faced three teams ranked 300 or worse. North Carolina played one team below 250 all year.

That matters, and it’s the first place West Virginia needs to look next year. Playing Mercyhurst, a first-year Division I school from Erie, is fine, but Bethune-Cookman and North Carolina Central should be nowhere near the Mountaineers’ schedule. The Mountaineers need to make sure their warmup games are against teams with local interest or against teams in the top 200 of college basketball. (Robert Morris, a Pittsburgh-area school, checked both boxes, a good scheduling move on the Mountaineers’ part). Looking to the MAC, whose members can usually be counted on to finish in the top 200 and are mostly based in neighboring Ohio, would be a good start.

West Virginia Basketball Failed Its Last Audition

Where West Virginia basketball really went wrong was losing to Colorado. When you sit on the bubble, you have to get the conference tournament right. The Mountaineers had a golden opportunity to seal their bid by doing two things: beat last-place Colorado and go down honorably against Houston. Beating the Cougars would have done it for sure, but nobody expected that. But as long as the Mountaineers got to play the Cougars, they likely would have been safe.

But they got outscored 15-0 in one stretch and committed seven consecutive turnovers. You can’t do that against anyone, and you certainly cannot do it against a Colorado team that was 13-19 going into that game. West Virginia played some of its worst basketball at the worst possible time. And in the end, the Mountaineers were caught needing help and getting none.

Related: West Virginia Comes Up Short

When you’re on the bubble, you cannot fail to show up in your conference tournament. It’s just that simple. Again, contrast it with North Carolina. The Tar Heels had a land mine against Notre Dame, defused it and beat the Irish by 20. They then dispatched Wake Forest and lost by three to Duke in the ACC semifinals. The committee’s last memory of the Tar Heels was coming three points shy of the No. 2 team in the field. Their last memory of the Mountaineers was seven straight possessions with a turnover.

The bottom line is that when you’re in this precarious position, every mistake is magnified. And in the end, West Virginia basketball really has nobody to blame but itself.