MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia will attempt to do something on Saturday at No. 3 Kansas it has done just once before in school history – win back-to-back games against Top 5 teams.
 
The 16^th-ranked Mountaineers knocked off then-second-ranked Ohio State in Cleveland last Sunday afternoon and will try to pull off the rare feat against a Jayhawk team that has won 28 straight conference openers dating back to 1992.
 
The only time West Virginia has ever defeated Top 5 teams in succession was 1958 when the Mountaineers beat fifth-ranked Kentucky and top-ranked North Carolina on back-to-back nights in the Kentucky Invitational in Lexington, Kentucky.
 
Of course, All-American Jerry West was playing for WVU back then.
 
It might take a Jerry West-type effort from somebody on West Virginia's team to defeat Kansas on Saturday and end the Jayhawks' 25-game winning streak at Allen Fieldhouse, the second longest active homecourt winning streak in the country.
 
Kansas has college basketball's best shot maker in 7-foot senior center Udoka Azubuike, who is averaging 13 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.
 
Azubuike is shooting an astonishing 79.8 percent from the floor and has only missed 18 shots in 12 games so far this season. The Delta, Nigeria, native has been perfect from the floor three times in wins against Monmouth (5-for-5), Milwaukee (7-for-7) and Kansas City (4-for-4) and he's missed just one shot in five others, including Kansas' recent 72-56 victory at Stanford.
 
"Azubuike is what, about 7-foot-1 and weighs 290 pounds and is shooting 80 percent from the field, and in my brief experience in this business that helps quite a bit whenever I saw somebody have that kind of guy," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "He's just so big and strong, and he pushes you up the lane, and they get a lot by throwing it overtop of you. And if you stay behind he just backs you down so he creates a lot of problems.
 
"But he's missed some shots lately, he's only shooting .798," Huggins joked.
 
Stanford, however, limited Azubuike to just two shot attempts and two points. His amazing shooting accuracy does not extend to the free throw line where he is making an abominable 31.8 percent of his 44 attempts. He's successfully converted just 81-of-214 for his career, which means that other than possibly hypnosis, there's not much more that can be done to improve it.
 
Incidentally, West Virginia used four different post players and nearly all of their 20 fouls to limit Ohio State's Kaleb Wesson to 3-of-11 from the floor in last Sunday's win over the Buckeyes, so putting Azubuike on the line frequently might be a strategy worth pursuing if he gets on a roll.
 
Huggins was asked Thursday if he would consider fouling Azubuike the way teams once did to Shaquille O'Neal when he was struggling from the free throw line. 
 
"You do what you've got to do to win, or you do what you do to try and give you the best opportunity to win," Huggins said. "But I doubt that he touches the ball much if they're ahead and we're fouling. He very well may not be in the game."
 
In addition to Azubuike, Kansas once again has a terrific backcourt led by sophomore guard Devon Dotson. The Charlotte resident is averaging a team-best 18.8 points per game and is responsible for more than 26 points per game when you add his 4.6 assists.
 
"I think he's one of the better guards in the country," Huggins said. "He can score it off the bounce, he's a really good jump shooter and he's got great speed in the open floor."
 
Ochai Agbaji, a 6-5, 210-pound sophomore guard from Kansas City, is contributing 11.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists and is shooting 39.3 percent from 3.
 
The Jayhawks are averaging 81.1 points per game and are shooting 51.6 percent as a team.
 
"I think the key to the game is making shots," Huggins said. "I think we're both going to rebound it, and we're both going to guard."
 
Kansas' best victories this year have come against Dayton (12-2), Colorado (12-3) and Stanford (12-2), while its two losses were to Duke (12-1) and Villanova (10-2). The Jayhawks are currently No. 2 in this week's NCAA NET rankings, seven spots ahead of West Virginia.
 
The Mountaineers are winless in seven appearances at Allen Fieldhouse, including an overtime loss in 2017 when the Jayhawks rallied from 14 points down with four minutes to go.
 
A year later, the Mountaineers were unable to hold on to a 12 point second-half lead in a 77-69 defeat that saw Huggins ejected in the game's final minute of play. It was just the fifth time in 1,234 career games the veteran coach was tossed from a game and only the second time as a WVU coach.
 
The other occurred at Connecticut in 2010, also in the game's waning minute.
 
Saturday's game will tip off at 4 p.m. and will only be available on the ESPN Plus streaming service (Mark Neely and Lance Blanks).
 
The MSN from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 3 p.m. leading into regular coverage with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs at 3:30 p.m. on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
 
West Virginia (11-1) will remain on the road to take on Oklahoma State Monday night in Stillwater. That game will tip off at 9 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2.