MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia's excursion through college basketball's Top 25 continues Tuesday night when the Mountaineers take on seventh-ranked Texas Tech at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas.
 
The Red Raiders (14-5, 6-4) are coming off a tougher-than-expected 73-62 victory against five-win Kansas State on Saturday.
 
Guard Mac McClung poured in 23 points on eight-of-17 shooting, while guards Kevin McCullar and Kyler Edwards contributed 15 and 13 points respectively.
 
Tech has won three straight against LSU, Oklahoma and Kansas State since dropping an 88-87 thriller in Morgantown 15 days ago.
 
In that game, McClung scored a game-high 30 points and had an opportunity to make the game-winner, but his shot attempt hit the back of the rim at the buzzer.
 
"I think we're better defensively than we were the first game against them," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said Monday morning. Huggins is now six wins shy of 900 for his career.
 
West Virginia's Deuce McBride put the Mountaineers ahead with a contested jumper with six seconds left. He led six double-figure West Virginia scorers with 24.
 
The Mountaineers shot a sizzling 12-of-19 from 3-point distance and 57.7% overall against Tech's twist on the pack line defense.
 
"They're going to fortify the paint and not give you easy baskets," Huggins noted. "They are going to try and make you take your shots on the perimeter and really pick out who they want to shoot those shots."
 
West Virginia is going to have to make those perimeter shots again on Tuesday if it wants to win in Lubbock for the first time since 2016. WVU has dropped five straight there, including three by just one-possession margins.
 
Last year, WVU fell 89-81 in Lubbock.
 
Huggins doesn't anticipate another high-scoring affair like we saw the first time these two teams played in Morgantown.
 
"Generally speaking, these games have been rock fights," he said.
 
West Virginia (13-5, 6-3) scored a season-high 91 points in Saturday's 12-point win over 23^rd-ranked Kansas.
 
McBride poured in a career-high 31 points to earn Big 12 player of the week honors. The Cincinnati resident made nine-of-16 from the floor and hit all nine of his free throw attempts, including four in the last two minutes to help WVU take sole possession of second place in the Big 12 standings.
 
Backcourt mate Taz Sherman added a career-high 25 on nine-of-17 shooting. Sherman was four-of-seven from 3-point distance.
 
Forward Derek Culver just missed his 26^th career double-double with 19 points and nine rebounds.
 
"I kind of like where we were after our last game," Huggins said. "I thought our intensity was better. I thought our rotations were better, and we were sending people where we wanted them to go. That's what we've got to do - just maintain some consistency in that regard."
 
McBride is now averaging a team-best 15.9 points per game.
 
Culver shows averages of 14.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, while Sherman's scoring average is up to 13.1 points per game.
 
Huggins tweaked his starting lineup against Kansas with junior Emmitt Matthews Jr. teaming with freshman Jalen Bridges and Culver at the forward positions and Sherman in the backcourt with McBride.
 
The veteran coach said part of the reason why he altered his lineup was to match up better with Kansas' length on the wings.
 
"The initial thought was we got nothing off the bench in terms of enthusiasm and somebody coming in who was going to uplift us a little bit," Huggins explained. "And I thought Jordan (McCabe) would do that. They all respect the heck out of him.
 
"I did that a lot at Cincinnati, bringing guys off the bench who just really raised our intensity level, and I really thought that would happen and it didn't work out that way, not to any fault of Jordan," he added.
 
Huggins admitted Tuesday that he liked what they did with the starting lineup against the Jayhawks.
 
"It was successful; why mess with it?" he said.
 
Texas Tech is expected to counter with a starting five that includes McClung (17.2 ppg.) McCullar (10.7 ppg.), Edwards (9.8 ppg.) and Micah Peavy (5.2 ppg.) in the backcourt with 6-foot-7 senior Marcus Santos-Silva (8.3 ppg.) the lone frontcourt player.
 
"They play hard and they have so many people who are kind of the same," Huggins said. "They're all 6-4, 6-5, they're all strong and can all play inside and outside and they can bother you with length."
 
West Virginia learned Monday that its back-to-back games against second-ranked Baylor have been postponed because of COVID-19 issues within the Bear program. That makes four regular season Big 12 games WVU that have been postponed now because of the virus.
The Mountaineers' home games scheduled against TCU and Oklahoma State last month were also postponed.
 
West Virginia has 11 days after its final regular season game against Kansas State on Feb. 27 to make up games before the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City gets underway on March 10.
 
WVU also now has an open window on the schedule after its game against Oklahoma at the WVU Coliseum on Saturday, Feb. 13 and its road tilt at Texas on Saturday, Feb. 20.
 
"I think the plan is to try and play all of the games," Huggins said. "That's why they left that week between the end of the season and the conference tournament. I think the plan is to play two, and maybe even three games in there to get them in."
 
Baylor (9-0) has a three-game lead on West Virginia in the Big 12 standings this week, with 7-4 Oklahoma and 6-4 Texas Tech right on the Mountaineers' heels.
 
Texas' loss at Oklahoma State drops the Longhorns to 5-4, a half-game ahead of 6-5 Kansas. The Cowboys are also in the hunt at 5-5.
 
TCU is in eighth place in the league standings at 3-5, while Kansas State (1-10) and Iowa State (0-8) bring up the bottom.
 
Tuesday night's game will tip off at 9 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN (Kevin Connors and Chris Spatola).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network from Learfield IMG College radio coverage on affiliates throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday begins at 8 p.m.
 
"We're going to get home at 5 a.m. or later, and then our guys have to go to class and to study hall and I'd like for those guys to go to class and not fall asleep," Huggins said. "We're just starting a new term and this puts those guys behind the eight-ball."
 
Tuesday's meeting will be the 22^nd in a series the Mountaineers lead 15-6.