MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – If you are a person who is into NET rankings, metrics and analytics, well, Saturday's West Virginia-Auburn SEC/Big 12 Challenge game is one for you.
 
That's because the computers really love these two basketball teams.
 
Auburn, which saw its 28-game home winning streak end against Texas A&M on the same night West Virginia ended its 12-game Big 12 road losing streak at Texas Tech, has been in the top 25 in the NCAA NET rankings for most of the year.
 
The 16-4 Tigers have since dropped to No. 30 but can get a big boost in Morgantown on Saturday against No. 25 West Virginia. The eight-loss Mountaineers have played the fourth-toughest schedule in the country with no respite in sight.
 
Auburn is going to be right in line with what is immediately on the other side for West Virginia with No. 13 TCU, No. 8 Texas, No. 65 Oklahoma and No. 9 Iowa State looming in the next nine days.
 
For everyone else not playing in the Big 12, getting a couple of wins would be considered a postseason resume builder. Get three of them and you're cooking with gas.
 
Win all five? 
 
Stop the season and schedule a parade!
 
That's what is confronting a 12-8 West Virginia team that is likely going to need to scratch out five or six more wins over its remaining 11 regular season games to feel good about where it is on Selection Sunday. 
 
If that happens, West Virginia will rest much easier than it did in its final year in the Big East in 2012 when it snuck into the tournament as a 10-seed with a 19-13 overall record. Two years ago, when the Mountaineers were 18-9 in a shortened year coming off COVID, they were seeded third.
 
That's the benefit of being in the nation's No. 1-ranked basketball conference. And the league will remain so regardless of what happens during tomorrow's 10-game challenge, despite stumbling the past two seasons when the SEC won six of 10 in 2022 and five of nine in 2021 (the Kansas-Kentucky game was canceled).
 
Why?
 
Because all 10 Big 12 teams will be playing tomorrow while the four worst SEC teams will be doing something else. Last year, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt didn't play in the challenge. Those four teams were a combined 70-69 for the season.
 
Two years ago, it was Georgia, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and South Carolina watching from the sidelines.

Do you see a pattern?
 
That's a heck of an advantage when one conference can cherry pick its top 10 teams to help determine who plays who in this event.
 
"The numbers tell you the Big 12 is far and away the hardest league," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "All of the people who come up with the numbers continue to say that you can pretty much fill all of the top five spots with Big 12 teams and conceivably more than that."
 
In some respects, West Virginia has probably gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to the Big 12/SEC Challenge, particularly since 2016 when it was moved to late January right in the heart of conference play. That year, stuck between a home game against Kansas State and a road trip to 13^th-ranked Iowa State, the Mountaineers had to play at Florida, where they lost 88-71.
 
In 2018, it was a home game against Kentucky for the Mountaineers after coming off a tough road loss at TCU.
 
In 2019, a struggling West Virginia team had to play at No. 1-ranked Tennessee four days before traveling to 20^th-ranked Iowa State.
 
Two years ago, it was a home game against Florida five days after an emotional 88-87 victory over 10^th-ranked Texas Tech and four days before another excursion to Ames, Iowa.
 
Last year's game required West Virginia to travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to play the Razorbacks two days before facing defending national champion Baylor in Waco. No need to turn the plane around and come home for that one.
 
"Let them go through what we go through on a year-by-year basis," Huggins said. "We're playing the best teams in the country year by year. You can say what you want about any other league, there is not a Kansas in any other league that's done what Kansas has done. 
 
"You go back and look at what our people do in the NCAA Tournament and what our people do out of conference; it's not close," he added. "I've coached in those leagues, and I've coached against those guys, and it's not the same."
 
Yes, these midseason challenge games are profitable for the conferences and the TV networks - and appealing to the fans and the pundits to watch - but they can be difficult on the coaches and the players.
 
Sophomore guard Seth Wilson said earlier today that he is treating Auburn just like he would a Big 12 opponent, even though he doesn't intimately know the Tigers the way he knows the Horned Frogs, the Sooners, the Longhorns and the Cyclones.
 
"They're a great team, and we're taking the same approach like they're in conference, and it's another game we have to go out and win and not take lightly," he said. "I see a team that's going to play really hard with great effort; they're really skilled and we've got to take them as if they're a Big 12 opponent because they have the same talent."
 
For an Auburn team that is hunting for quality wins, Saturday looms large. College basketball on-air personality Rob Dauster on Wednesday's TV show "Field of 68" called the Tigers "the biggest fraud in the country."
 
That's harsh, too harsh perhaps, but he does make a valid point that Auburn needs to add more quality wins to its postseason resume. Right now, its best victories are against Arkansas at home and Northwestern on a neutral floor. The Tigers also count wins over Florida, which West Virginia defeated by 29 points on a neutral site, and Mississippi State.
 
TV analyst Chris Mack says Auburn coach Bruce Pearl's scheduling philosophy has been to play good mid-majors in nonconference, avoid the bottom 300 teams in the NET and rely on its strong SEC record to build its postseason resume.
 
That means Auburn isn't normally coming to places like Morgantown - unless it's part of a made-for-TV deal.
 
So, Saturday afternoon's matchup will have value to Auburn, and it certainly has value to a West Virginia team that is trying to stack wins on top of each other.
 
If you're the Mountaineers, winning the game means some bragging rights and some more NCAA Tournament cred. Losing it means they move on to more tough ones - which is exactly what the they have done in the years they have not fared well in the Challenge.
 
Saturday's game has already been announced a sellout and will tip off at noon. It will be televised nationally on ESPN (Kevin Fitzgerald and Dane Bradshaw). 
 
Other Big 12/SEC Challenge games on Saturday include:
 
No. 2 Alabama at Oklahoma, 2 p.m.
Texas Tech at LSU, 2 p.m.
No. 12 Iowa State at Missouri, 2 p.m.
No. 11 TCU at Mississippi State, 4 p.m.
No. 17 Baylor at Arkansas, 4 p.m.
No. 10 Texas at No. 4 Tennessee, 6 p.m.
Florida at No. 5 Kansas State, 6 p.m.
No. 9 Kansas at Kentucky, 8 p.m.
Ole Miss at Oklahoma State, 8 p.m.