MORGANTOWN — You may have noticed the WVU men’s basketball team did not have a mid-week game this week. If you didn’t, well, that maybe reflects on how this season has gone so far for the Mountaineers.
In any sense, having a stretch of six or seven days off between games is the Big 12 basketball’s version of a bye week, one that was built into the schedules of all 16 conference teams this season.
It is a result of the Big 12 men’s coaches voting at the beginning of the season to go from 20 conference games back down to 18. The thinking behind the coaches’ reasoning is 20 league games was too much of a gauntlet, too much of a grind in what is already a long and difficult season.
All of that is probably true. In the case of West Virginia (15-9, 6-5 Big 12), just imagine if Ross Hodge’s bunch had two more games scheduled this season against a combination of an Iowa State, Houston, Arizona, Texas Tech or Kansas.
OK, maybe not Kansas. WVU owns the Jayhawks at this point, but you get the picture.
There is a give and take to the bye week, beginning with the fact that it allows each Big 12 team to go out and schedule two more nonconference games each season.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where this season’s WVU men’s hoops team was seemingly doomed from the beginning in terms of trying to work its way into the 2026 NCAA tourney.
Why? Simply because Hodge and the Mountaineers didn’t schedule very well in the nonconference season. In fact, when you look at the metrics on Feb. 14, and see how those opponents way back in November and December are faring in their seasons, Hodge did a very poor job of scheduling.
WVU’s strength of schedule is ranked No. 92 in the country. That’s the worst strength of schedule among Big 12 teams. Iowa State is next in line at No. 75.
Now, those statements are true, but they also come with an asterisk, in that Hodge is a first-year guy at WVU. He didn’t get going until April. He had to recruit an entire roster and hire a coaching staff. Putting together a schedule, we admit, couldn’t have been his highest priority at the time.
What goes into having a schedule ranked No. 92? There are 365 Division I teams this year. The teams currently ranked No. 365 and No. 364 in the NCAA’s NET rankings – Mississippi Valley State and Coppin State – were both on WVU’s schedule.
So was Mount St. Mary’s (No. 299) and Lehigh (No. 298) and Lafayette (No. 319). We can keep going. Mercyhurst is No. 286 in the NET. Little Rock (Arkansas) is 308th.
If you want, go back and check out Hodge’s postgame press conferences following some of those games. Somewhere in there you will find Hodge making a prediction that some of these teams would go on to do very well in their conference to help give WVU a boost in the metrics.
Um, that hasn’t exactly panned out.
If it had, we would certainly hail Hodge as a masterful scheduler today, because strength of schedule rankings in any collegiate sport can be easily manipulated. Former WVU coach Bob Huggins was great at it.
Here’s how. We’ll talk in very general terms and assume WVU is a top 60 program, which it sort of is today, as the Mountaineers are No. 62 in the NET.
If WVU could go out every single season and schedule a nonconference game against a team in the top three of the MAC, top four of the American, the leader of the Big South, the leader of Conference USA and then get hooked up with a good ACC team during a Thanksgiving tournament and maybe another neutral-court game against a good Big East or Big Ten team, that would easily be a top 10 strength of schedule.
The kicker? WVU would still likely be favored in the majority of those games. You can boost your strength of schedule greatly by playing teams such as Liberty, Winthrop, Akron and UNC Wilmington without really hurting your chances of a 20-win season.
The real trick is trying to find which of those teams in the smaller conferences are going to be good. In the transfer portal era, that is not easily done.
And scheduling is so crucial. It’s the reason why the WVU women’s basketball team got a screw job handed to it by the selection committee when it came to the Mountaineers’ seeding in the last two NCAA tournaments.
It’s why a WVU baseball team that won the Big 12 regular season last May and won a school-record 44 games, didn’t get to host a regional in the NCAA tournament.
And it’s very much why WVU is ranked No. 62 in the NET today, as opposed to No. 50 or in the high 40s.
If you’re a bubble-type program, your schedule says everything. Now, if you have the type of talent that can blitz through the Big 12 and finish 15-3 in conference play, scheduling is not that big of a deal. A team like that is going to win 27 games anyway and be assured of a spot in the NCAAs.
But, if you’re not a top-level team and you’re using those two extra nonconference games to schedule Mercyhurst and Lafayette, that’s a major problem.
Hodge gets a pass, for now, because everything was so jammed up when he took over. He had a lot on his plate.
Moving forward, it can’t continue to be that way. Otherwise, the Big 12 should just go back to playing 20 league games again and eliminate the bye week, which is something Hodge said he was against.
“Hearing people talk about last year and going through that gauntlet with no bye, it’s hard enough as it is,” he said. “It’s such a physical league. You have to be so sharp mentally every night. As much as you need a physical break, you need a mental break, as well.”
