MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bob Huggins is going to get to do something on Sunday in Cleveland that he never got the opportunity to do when he coached at Cincinnati – play Ohio State.
 
The Buckeyes have always been the top dog in Ohio when it comes to college football. There has never been a question about that.
 
But college basketball supremacy in the state has been up for grabs at times, with Ohio State competing with Cincinnati and sometimes Xavier for top bragging rights. As a result, the Buckeyes made it a point to steer clear of Huggins' Bearcats.
 
When No. 22 West Virginia and No. 2 Ohio State hook up at noon on Sunday at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in downtown Cleveland, state supremacy is not on the line. What is at stake is perhaps even more valuable – a top-quality, NCAA Tournament resume-building victory.
 
Getting one over the 9-1 Buckeyes certainly qualifies as quality win for West Virginia, which comes into Sunday's game with a NET ranking of 10 after having faced one of the most difficult non-conference schedules in the country up to this point.
 
The combined winning percentage of the Mountaineers' 11 opponents so far this season is .757, which is currently tops in the country. 
 
However, there were no numbers next to the teams West Virginia has defeated so far this year, although Wichita State has since moved into the coaches' poll and Northern Iowa is knocking on the door in both polls. But there is a very low number next to Ohio State and the Buckeyes will give outsiders who haven't had an opportunity to watch West Virginia yet a better read on just how good the Mountaineers are.
 
That's because the Buckeyes are good. How good? They've got three Mr. Basketballs on their roster this year – Ohio's Mr. Basketball Kaleb Wesson, Iowa's Mr. Basketball D.J. Carton and Illinois' Mr. Basketball E.J. Liddell.
 
Wesson, a 6-9, 270-pound junior forward, is one of three Buckeyes averaging double figures with a team-best 13.9 points-per-game average. He's also tops on the team in rebounding at 9.0 boards per game and has also attempted 39 3-point field goals, second most on the team.
 
He will be an interesting guard for West Virginia's Derek Culver.
 
"Derek's been out there guarding 6-2, 6-3 guys the whole preseason pretty much," Huggins said.
 
Duane Washington, a 6-3, 190-pound sophomore guard from Grand Rapids, Michigan, will be another challenging player to defend. Ohio State's lone loss this year at Minnesota was when Washington missed two games with a rib injury.
 
He returned to contribute eight points in 14 minutes coming off the bench in Ohio State's 75-65 victory over Kentucky last Saturday in Las Vegas.
 
Carlton came off the bench to lead a balanced Buckeye attack with 15 points and five rebounds against the Wildcats.
 
Both Washington and Carlton are averaging 11.1 points per game.
 
"Washington has been unbelievable," Huggins said. "Statistically he's been their best perimeter shooter."
 
Ohio State is shooting an impressive 49.1 percent from the floor and 40.9 percent from 3 while holding its opponents to 35.2 percent overall and 29.3 percent from behind the arc.
 
"They really make shots," Huggins said. "Sometimes they play five-out. Wesson has made 18 3s. He's not going to bully us, but he's a very skilled guy. Not only does he step out and shoot it but he steps out and passes it."
 
Coach Chris Holtmann's Buckeyes are out-rebounding opponents by an average of 8.6 boards per game while outscoring teams by an average of nearly 22 points per game.
 
West Virginia, meanwhile, has used its size advantage near the basket and some impressive perimeter defense to win 10 of its first 11 games for the fifth time in the last six years. This week, the Mountaineers rank second nationally in 3-point field goal percentage defense at 24.6 percent, third offensive rebounding with an average of 14.9 per game, third in rebounds per game at 42.7 and fifth in overall field goal percentage defense at 36.2 percent.
 
Freshman Oscar Tshiebwe and Culver are nearly averaging double-doubles, Tshiebwe at 12.9 points and 9.3 rebounds and Culver at 11.4 points and 9.4 rebounds per outing.
 
Senior guard Jermaine Haley is averaging 11.1 points  while sophomore forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. recently dipped below double digits at 9.7 points per game.
 
The Mountaineers are averaging 75.5 points and surrendering 62.3 points per game, while Ohio State is scoring 79.2 and giving up 57.4 per outing.
 
"They're playing small, basically, and they can really run," Huggins said.
 
Sunday's game will be the 17^th overall meeting between the two schools since series play began in 1940. Ohio State holds a slim 9-7 advantage, but West Virginia has won seven out of the last eight. The last meeting took place in Morgantown on Jan. 23, 2010 when West Virginia overcame a double-digit first half deficit to knock off the No. 21-rated Buckeyes 71-65.
 
The year prior, West Virginia routed No. 15 Ohio State 76-48 in Columbus.
 
Sunday's game will tip off at noon and will be televised nationally on FS1.
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs will begin at 11 a.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular app WVU Gameday.
 
Briefly:
 
* West Virginia begins a difficult stretch of road games that includes No. 2 Ohio State in Cleveland on Sunday, at No. 5 Kansas in Lawrence on Saturday afternoon and then at Oklahoma State on Monday Night. The last time WVU faced Top 5-teams in consecutive games it split, knocking off No. 1-ranked Kansas in Morgantown 74-63 and losing at No. 2 Oklahoma 70-68 back in 2016. The last time the Mountaineers faced Top 5 teams away from the Coliseum was during the 2010 NCAA Tournament when they defeated No. 2 Kentucky 73-66 before falling 78-57 to No. 3 Duke in the national semifinals in Indianapolis, Indiana.
 
"These games are great resume builders," Huggins said. "You beat Ohio State and Kansas back-to-back and people are going to start talking about you."
 
* Huggins was once an assistant coach at Ohio State on Eldon Miller's staff in 1979-80 when he helped the Buckeyes to a 40-20 record and a pair of postseason appearances.
 
* Huggins now needs just eight victories to tie Adolph Rupp for seventh place in NCAA history with 876 wins. Huggins remains college basketball's fourth winningest active coach behind just Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Roy Williams.
 
* Two weeks ago, West Virginia returned to the national rankings for the first time since the preseason poll in 2019. The Mountaineers have appeared in the rankings in 10 out of the 13 years Huggins has coached his alma mater.
 
* West Virginia has two Ohio residents on its roster this year – Youngstown's Derek Culver and Cincinnati's Miles McBride. McBride's father, Walt, played with Keith Wesson, father of Ohio State's Andre and Kaleb Wesson,  in the 1982 Dapper Dan High School All-Star Game for Team Ohio.
 
Keith Wesson went on to appear in 115 games during his four-year career at Ohio State while Walt McBride was a standout player at Xavier for coaches Bob Staak and Pete Gillen.
 
"From high school, when Kaleb was at Westerville and we made it up to states they saw each other and talked about all of the good memories they had playing in that game," Miles said. "It was a great game historically – everybody knew about the Dapper Dan and everybody wanted to be in it."
 
McBride said he followed the high school careers of the Wesson brothers.
 
"They accomplished great things and so did I. I think our teams are pretty evenly matched so it's going to be a good battle," McBride said. 
 
McBride said his mother Kim, a former Ohio State tennis player, will be wearing her gold and blue in Cleveland on Sunday.