MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia is seeking its third win in Big 12 play on Saturday night when the Mountaineers face Texas in an 8 p.m. game that will be televised nationally on ESPN2.
 
The two teams met in Austin back on Jan. 5 when the Longhorns pulled out a 61-54 victory.
 
West Virginia fought back from an eight-point deficit to make it a two-point game with 2:25 remaining on a Derek Culver put-back basket.
 
After Jaxson Hayes and Esa Ahmad traded baskets, Matt Coleman made the shot of the game when he nailed a clutch 3 from deep in the corner with the shot clock about to expire to give the Longhorns a five-point lead.
 
Coleman led Texas with 17 points while Dylan Osetkowski contributed 14 for Texas.
 
Culver came off the bench to score 17 points and grab nine rebounds for West Virginia.
 
Earlier this week, Texas got 21 points on seven-of-nine shooting from Kerwin Roach II to knock off Baylor 84-72 in Austin. The Longhorns led the Bears by 15 at halftime and shot a sizzling 55.1 percent from the floor for the game.
 
Coleman chipped in 18 while Hayes contributed 12.
 
Texas (13-10, 5-5) shows four players averaging double figures, led by Roach's 14.9 points-per-game average.
 
Hayes (10.6 ppg.), Coleman (10.3 ppg.) and Osetkowski (10.3 ppg.) are Texas' other double-digit scorers. Osetkowski is pulling down a team-best 8.0 rebounds per game.
 
The Baylor victory snapped a recent streak that saw Texas lose three of four at TCU, Georgia and Iowa State.
 
In between was a 73-63 home victory over Kansas.
 
The Longhorns are 10-4 at home but only 1-5 in road games this year, their lone victory coming at Kansas State back on Jan. 2.
 
Meanwhile, West Virginia's two victories in Big 12 play this year have come on Saturdays at the WVU Coliseum – against then-seventh-ranked Kansas 65-64 on Jan. 19 and against Oklahoma 79-71 last Saturday.
 
In its most recent game last Monday night at Texas Tech, WVU made just nine field goal attempts in an 81-50 loss to the Red Raiders.
 
"We just kind of laid it down, which is really unfathomable when you look at it," said an under-the-weather West Virginia coach Bob Huggins Friday afternoon. The coach has been dealing with the flu.
 
"We did some things against Texas Tech you learn not to do in grade school," Huggins said. "You don't throw a two-hand chest pass through people. I don't know what goes through their minds sometimes."
 
The lone bright spot for the Mountaineers on Monday night was the play of Culver, who established a modern-day school record with 24 free throw attempts on the way to scoring a season-high 23 points. Culver also pulled down 12 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season.
 
The Youngstown, Ohio, resident is now averaging 12.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game while shooting a team-best 51.4 percent from the floor.
 
WVU's top two scorers, juniors Sagaba Konate (13.6 ppg.) and Beetle Bolden (12.2 ppg.), continue to recover from injuries.
 
Konate missed his 15^thstraight game on Monday night while Bolden has now been out for three straight games after suffering a high ankle sprain in the Tennessee loss on Jan. 26.
 
"As of yesterday, (Bolden) was out," Huggins noted. "I haven't talked to him yet today."
 
Consequently, West Virginia has used 14 different starting lineup combinations with 13 different players starting at least one game.
 
Senior forward Esa Ahmad, now 50^thin school history in career scoring with 1,025 points, is averaging 12 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Ahmad is poised to jump past Tony Robertson (1,026) and Lee Patrone (1,028) on Saturday into 47^thplace.
 
Junior forward Lamont West is also averaging double figures at 10 points per game with a team-best 39 3-point field goals.
 
Eight of West Virginia's 10 victories this year have come at the WVU Coliseum against what is considered to be the 10^thmost difficult schedule in the country, according to the latest NCAA NET rankings.
 
"To put it mildly, the schedule-maker hasn't been kind," Huggins said, noting the extensive travel his young team has been required to do of late. Since Jan. 26, the Mountaineers have made trips to Knoxville, Tennessee, Ames, Iowa and Lubbock, Texas. That's nearly 5,500 miles of travel in a relatively short period of time.
 
"It's been rough," Huggins admitted. "I stayed to recruit, but (the team) got back from Lubbock at 5:15 a.m. That's ridiculous. (Oklahoma coach) Lon Kruger said, 'I don't know how you do this. We do it one time and we always ask for a Saturday afternoon game.' Man 5 o'clock in the morning, that's rough."
 
West Virginia and Texas will be meeting for the 19^thtime in series play with the Longhorns owning a 10-8 advantage. WVU has won four of the last six but Texas has claimed the last two – both in Austin.
 
Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, WVU is 7-8 against Texas.
 
The Longhorns are one game behind Texas Tech in the Big 12 standings in sixth place while West Virginia has the same number of wins as ninth-place Oklahoma State with one more loss.
 
"I think (the players) think there is still a chance," Huggins said. "We've got nine, 10 more games or whatever it is. We can get it turned around. We just need to string some wins together.
 
"We just have not closed games," he continued. "It's been a year, I guess, of near misses. You look at our record and you think it's a bad team and we're not as bad as our record shows. We should be a much better team."
 
The Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College will have statewide radio coverage beginning at 7 p.m. Fans can also access the game broadcast online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.