No. 11 West Virginia seeks first Big 12 title against No. 23 Iowa State (Mar 11, 2017)
Both teams are safely in the NCAA Tournament field, seeded at least as high as sixth, but don't tell the 11th-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers or the No. 23 Iowa State Cyclones that there's nothing to play for in the Big 12 tournament final on Saturday.
The second-seeded Mountaineers are looking for their first Big 12 title in their fifth season and their first conference tournament title since 2010 when they were part of the Big East.
The fourth-seeded Cyclones are trying to move into second place all time in Big 12 tournament titles (behind Kansas, which has won 10) with their fourth championship.
West Virginia reached the title game in 2016 but fell to Kansas 81-71. The Mountaineers are looking for redemption.
"I think everybody who comes here comes here to win," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "We've got another opportunity to win, and that's what they were talking about in there. Let's don't let another opportunity slip away from us."
Huggins hopes his team plays better than it did in its 51-50 victory over Kansas State in the semifinals.
"Kansas State is pretty good," he said. "Let's don't take anything away from them. They played great last night. They played really well today.
"We didn't do a very good job on our man and we decided to try a little bit of the 1-3-1. I'm not very smart, but I'm smart enough when it works keep doing it. It's been pretty good for us."
Iowa State does not have to worry about confidence heading into the final. The Cyclones defeated a hot Oklahoma State team 92-83 in the second round, then trounced TCU 84-63 in the first semifinal Friday.
"We just played West Virginia, so, you know, obviously we know their strengths and weaknesses and they know ours," Iowa State coach Steve Prohm said. "I'll watch the game tonight and I'll watch our last game against them and then we will meet again in the morning.
"We won't show tape to the guys tonight. I want them to watch this game and go to bed. We will have our edit when we have breakfast. We've got a great opportunity and we've got to play really well to beat (them)."
West Virginia won both games by double figures during the regular season.
The Mountaineers held Iowa State to 28.6 percent shooting from the field in the second half at Ames in mid-January to win 85-72. Nathan Adrian had a career-high 23 points to lead the Mountaineers. He was 7 of 10 from the field, including 2 of 3 from 3-point range. He also hit 7 of 8 from the free-throw line.
In the final game of the regular season in Morgantown, W.Va., repeated the trick. This time, the Mountaineers pulled away from a one-point halftime lead to win 87-76. They held the Cyclones to 30 percent from the field in the second half. This time, it was Daxter Miles who accounted for 23 points.
Despite the twin victories, Huggins is not overconfident.
"They make so many shots and score so many points," he said. "We're going to have to score more than 51 tomorrow probably."
