MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Ailing West Virginia will try to snap its three-game losing streak Saturday afternoon when Kansas State comes to town for a rematch of its Jan. 1 loss to the Mountaineers in Manhattan, Kansas.
 
In that game, a 77-69 WVU win, freshman Teddy Allen came off the bench to score 22 points and sophomore forward Lamont West contributed 19, including a couple of 3s.
 
But a lot has changed since then.
 
West Virginia has dropped five of its last six games to slip to fourth in the Big 12 standings, tied with K-State. The Wildcats (16-6, 5-4) won four straight before falling, 70-56, to seventh-ranked Kansas earlier this week.
 
K-State recently had a pair of impressive wins over Oklahoma and TCU and followed those up with victories against Baylor and in the Big 12/SEC Challenge over Georgia.
 
"I think they're playing with a lot of confidence," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "Their guards have really stepped it up, and (Dean) Wade has continued to play really well. Their bigs have gotten experiences. They're just a better team."
 
The Mountaineers, meanwhile, are looking to regain the form they showed earlier this month when they reached No. 2 in the polls after reeling off 15 straight wins after their season-opening loss to Texas A&M.
 
Since defeating Baylor, 57-54, at the Coliseum back on Jan. 9., WVU has dropped five of six, and in four of those five defeats, the Mountaineers were in the game until the end.
 
On Wednesday night in Ames, Iowa, however, West Virginia never really was after tying Iowa State at 29 late in the first half. The Cyclones scored nine straight points and never looked back on the way to a 93-77 victory.
 
The Mountaineers (16-6, 5-4) played without senior guard Daxter Miles Jr. due to illness and have had several other players under the weather.
 
"I don't think there was any doubt the Iowa State game, we didn't have any legs so we're going to try and save as much energy as we can," Huggins, also under the weather, said Friday.
 
The veteran coach didn't sound too encouraged about having Miles for Saturday's game against K-State, or the overall health of his team with conference games on the horizon at Oklahoma on Monday night and against Oklahoma State coming up next Saturday in Morgantown.
 
"Honestly, I'm just worried about having enough guys to play," he said. "I don't know what we can do. We're going to dummy through a bunch of stuff (Friday). I don't think we've ever had this many guys sick at one time."
 
Nevertheless, WVU has dug itself a hole and has to figure out a way to climb out of it with one month remaining in the regular season. And nobody is going to lend them a hand to help them out.
 
At one time, West Virginia was sitting at a two-seed in most NCAA Tournament brackets but has since slipped to a five in Joe Lunardi's latest bracket update Thursday on ESPN.com.
 
A victory Saturday over a Kansas State team that is also in Lunardi's bracket this week would certainly help.
 
Tipoff is 4 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Rich Hollenberg and Fran Fraschilla).
 
The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's coverage begins at 3 p.m. on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
 
Pregame notes: This will be the 15^th time West Virginia and Kansas State have played each other, WVU now leading 9-5 … The Mountaineers have won eight of the last nine meetings and are 8-4 against the Wildcats since joining the Big 12 … Huggins is 9-5 when facing his former teams, including a 9-4 record at WVU … Jevon Carter leads West Virginia in scoring (17.4 ppg.) and assists (6.4 apg.) heading into Saturday's game … Carter is averaging 20.7 points, 6.2 assists and 4.3 rebounds over his last six games … The senior guard has scored more than 20 three times against Texas Tech (28), Texas (22) and Kentucky (26) during that stretch … Sophomore forward Sagaba Konate has also played well of late, averaging 14 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.6 blocks over his last five games … Konate has boosted his season scoring average to 10.1 points per game while averaging 8.0 rebounds per contest … Junior forward Esa Ahmad bounced back from a recent 0-for-12 shooting stretch by hitting 7-of-10 shots at Iowa State to score 17 points … Ahmad also was in the starting lineup for the first time since his reinstatement at Texas Tech on Jan. 13 … WVU is facing its third Saturday-Monday turnaround of the season with Saturday's game against K-State followed by a Monday road game at Oklahoma … The Mountaineers have two more of these coming up, next week against Oklahoma State and TCU and then later this month with consecutive home games against Iowa State and Texas Tech … Kansas State is coming off a poor shooting performance against Kanas on Monday night when it made just 21-of-65 for 32.3 percent … Forward Dean Wade provided the bulk of the offense for the Wildcats with 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting … Junior guard Barry Brown leads K-State in scoring with 17 points per game, followed by Wade's 16.4 points-per-game average … Sophomore guard Xavier Sneed is averaging 11 points per game … Third-leading scorer Kamau Stokes (13.4 ppg.) has been sidelined since the Texas Tech loss with foot injury but could possibly return for Saturday's game, according to the Wichita Eagle … The Wildcats have not missed a beat with freshman Cartier Diarra in the lineup in place of Stokes, and has won five of the seven games Stokes has missed … Kansas State will continue on the road with a game at Texas next Wednesday night.