COACH: Bob Huggins, four years at West Virginia, four years in NCAA tournament.
HOW THEY GOT IN: At-large bid.
GO-TO GUYS: Casey Mitchell comes off the bench these days, but still leads the Mountaineers in scoring at 14.1 points per game. He's the most dangerous long-range shooter on the team, and tough to guard late in games because he also makes nearly 87 percent of his free throw attempts. Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant are also double-figure scorers, though Jones hurts himself by shooting less than 60 percent from the line. John Flowers is a sneaky good shooter who can pop out and hit a three as easy as he can score inside.
X FACTOR: When West Virginia is rebounding, it's usually winning. The Mountaineers are 1-7 when they lose the battle of the boards, since the team doesn't shoot well enough to overcome that.
STRENGTHS: Unsurprisingly for a Bob Huggins-coached team, the Mountaineers almost always bring it on the defensive end of the court. They hold opponents to just over 40 percent from the field and less than 30 percent from 3-point range, and because they switch aggressively off screens and have the athletes to do so effectively they rarely give up easy baskets. The Mountaineers held opponents to 29.1 percent shooting from 3-point range in the regular season, the best mark in the Big East. They're excellent on the offensive glass and have a plus-three turnover margin, so if you're going into the game counting on West Virginia to beat itself, you're going to be disappointed.
WEAKNESSES: This is not one of the best shooting teams in Huggins' tenure, making about 43 percent of its attempts from the field and barely a third of its tries from beyond the arc. It's much stronger on the offensive glass than it is on the defensive one. The perimeter defense is geared more towards forcing bad shots than it is generating turnovers, and the Mountaineers manage fewer than five steals per game.
