Baylor Visits West Virginia in Saturday Big 12 Showdown
An important Big 12 matchup takes place on Saturday in Morgantown, West Virginia when the Baylor Bears visit the West Virginia Mountaineers. Baylor enters this game with an overall record of 17-5 and a road record of 3-3. West Virginia on the season is 18-4 overall and 8-2 at home.
Royce O’Neale had his best game of last season in Morgantown and the forward for Baylor will look to repeat that feat on Saturday, when the No. 19 ranked Bears visit the No. 12 ranked Mountaineers.
O’Neale made 8 out of 8 shots and had 22 points and 6 rebounds to go with 6 assists in last season’s 88-75 Baylor win.
This is the first meeting between the teams since that Baylor win and the Bears will be looking to extend their conference winning streak to three with a win.
West Virginia was blown out on Tuesday against Oklahoma the No. 21 ranked team in the nation. The Mountaineers pressure defense could not stop the Sooners who won 71-52. That loss came just three weeks after West Virginia defeated the Sooners by 21 points at Oklahoma.
Baylor enters this game off a 77-57 win over TCU on Wednesday night. The first time the two teams met this season, Baylor needed overtime to beat the Horned Frogs.
Baylor is one of nine teams in the NCAA to hold all its opponents to less than 75 points this season.
Kenny Chery has picked his game up for Baylor. In his past two games, Chery is 14 for 20, including hitting 7 of hits 11 shots for three-point territory. He has 11 assists, 9 rebounds and 5 steals over the two-game period.
Eron Harris scored 32 points for West Virginia last season against Baylor. However, he has transferred leaving Juwan Staten in charge of much of the offense for the Mountaineers.
Staten is scoring 14.8 points per game which is down from his 18.1 points per game last season.
Devin Williams a starting forward for West Virginia and the second leading scorer on the team missed the game on Tuesday against Oklahoma due to an illness, but should play Saturday.
Baylor has a record of 17-3 this season when it scores 60 points or more, but is 0-3 if they are held below the 60-point mark. Rico Gathers a forward for Baylor is leading the Big 12 with 11 double-doubles this season.
Baylor is 3-0-1 ATS in its past 4 games played on Saturday.
West Virginia is 4-1 ATS in its past 5 games played following a loss ATS.
West Virginia is 1-4 ATS in its past 5 games vs. an opponent with a winning percentage higher than .600.
Pick: West Virginia 65-62
