17th-ranked Mountaineers host hapless Red Raiders

Jan 31, 2015 - 3:46 PM Morgantown, WV (SportsNetwork.com) - Hoping to keep pace in the race for the Big 12 Conference crown, the 17th-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers play host to the struggling Texas Tech Red Raiders on Saturday afternoon.

Texas Tech dropped an embarrassing 81-36 decision at Oklahoma on Wednesday night, giving the team losses in seven of its last eight games and nine of its last 11 overall. As a result, the Red Raiders find themselves at 11-10 on the season and just 1-7 in conference. That one triumph was a shocker as they upset a ranked Iowa State squad at home last Saturday, 78-73.

West Virginia enters this fray sporting an impressive 17-3 record, which includes a 5-2 league ledger. That latter figure has the team tied for second place in the Big 12 standings coming into the weekend, and it will try to secure its third straight victory with a win today. The Mountaineers are 7-2 at home this season, with their two blemishes coming against LSU and Iowa State.

West Virginia owns a 6-1 series advantage against Texas Tech, and the Mountaineers won both meetings last season.

Texas Tech could do little right in its recent clash with Oklahoma, as the team shot just 21.2 percent from floor, missing 14 of its 17 3-point tries in the process. An 11-of-19 effort at the free-throw line didn't help matters, nor did 17 turnovers and the fact that the Sooners knocked down 52.5 percent of their total shots, including nine treys. No player scored in double digits for Tech, with Robert Turner and Stan Mays coming closest with eight points apiece.

Despite a tough night against OU in which he went just 1-of-7 from the field to tally four points, Devaugntah Williams (10.6 ppg) is the only player on the roster presently averaging double figures. The Red Raiders struggle on offense, netting a mere 63.3 ppg in hitting only 39.9 percent of their field goal attempts, which includes a 30.7 percent showing from beyond the arc. Fortunately, they play pretty well at the defensive end in yielding only 63.0 ppg behind typical shooting outputs of .408 overall and .321 from distance.

West Virginia was in a real fight the last time out, as it picked up a 65-59 win at Kansas State on Tuesday night. Tarik Phillip paced the Mountaineers with 12 points and Juwan Staten tacked on 11 more, but the squad struggled to hit just 36.4 percent of its field goal attempts, which included a dismal 4- of-17 performance out on the perimeter. WVU was also guilty of an unsightly 20 turnovers, but the Wildcats were even more careless as they coughed the ball up a whopping 25 times. They too had a tough time hitting their shots, doing so at a 36.7 percent clip.

Staten (14.9 ppg) and Devin Williams (11.0 ppg) are the only two players currently averaging double digits in the scoring column for a West Virginia team that puts up 77.1 ppg behind shooting efforts that see just 41.4 of its field goal attempts find the bottom of the net. The Mountaineers are converting just 29.7 percent of their long-range launches, but their defensive stance permits only 63.9 ppg. Additional stats proving WVU's worth are that the team leads the nation in steals (251), steals per game (12.6), turnover margin (+9.7) and offensive rebounds (17.7).