MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There is perhaps no one more familiar with Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland than West Virginia University director of athletics Wren Baker.
 
When he was North Texas' athletic director in 2017, Baker hired McCasland as his head basketball coach, putting McCasland on a career arc that now has him in Lubbock, Texas, reviving a Red Raider program that has experienced many highs and lows over the last five years.
 
The ultimate high was reaching the national championship game in 2019 when Tech lost to Virginia in overtime. The low took place last year when coach Mark Adams was fired after a litany of accusations by his players.
 
McCasland, coming off a 31-win season and an NIT championship at North Texas last year, kept guards Pop Isaacs, Kerwin Walton and D'Maurian Williams in the fold while adding key transfers Joe Toussaint (West Virginia) Warren Washington (Arizona State), Devan Cambridge (Arizona State) and Darrion Williams (Nevada).
 
Cambridge and Washington, a 7-foot, 230-pound center, have missed time because of injuries.
 
In Tuesday night's 81-69 home loss to Texas, the Red Raiders used a starting lineup of Isaacs, Williams, Toussaint and Walton at guards, with 6-foot-7, 290-pound sophomore Robert Jennings manning the post.
 
Isaacs (16 ppg.), Toussaint (12.3 ppg.), Williams (11 ppg.) and 6-foot-3, 185-pund reserve guard Chance McMillian (10.1ppg.) are averaging double figures.
 
"They're solid defensively," West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said. "They really get up in you, and  of course, we all know who Joe Toussaint is and how he plays. He's a bulldog out there on the floor defensively, so I'm sure he's going to come back to Morgantown with a chip on his shoulder and try and wreak havoc."
 
Toussaint's return to the WVU Coliseum after helping West Virginia to an NCAA Tournament appearance last year will be keenly anticipated by the WVU student body and its cheering group, the Mountaineer Maniacs.
 
Tech, with 19 wins, currently has an NCAA NET ranking of 42 and is comfortably in the NCAA Tournament field of 68, according to ESPN.com's latest bracketology projections, but the Red Raiders also recently lost at UCF and are looking to get back to their winning ways Saturday night against West Virginia.
 
"They're really good," Eilert noted. "They're a slower-paced team who really shares the ball while running their sets. They don't get in too big of a hurry so they're one of the better teams at taking care of it, sharing it and slowing down to get whatever mismatch they want from an offensive standpoint."
 
The Mountaineers narrowly missed producing the greatest comeback victory in school history on Monday night when they erased a 25-point deficit at Kansas State with 13:04 remaining, only to see the Wildcats pull the game out in overtime.
 
Guard Kerr Kriisa's 3-point basket with two minutes to go gave West Virginia a 77-74 lead, and the margin could have been four with 24 seconds left, but center Jesse Edwards missed two free throws and K-State tied the game on a pair of free throws.
 
In overtime, K-State outscored West Virginia 15-11 to drop the Mountaineers to 9-19 overall and 4-11 in Big 12 play.
 
WVU is currently tied with Oklahoma State at the bottom of the conference standings, but the Cowboys have the tiebreaker over the Mountaineers because of their 70-66 win in Stillwater in January. Tech is in a three-way tie with BYU and TCU in fifth place with 8-7 league records.
 
The Red Raiders finish their regular season with games against Oklahoma State on the road Tuesday night and at home against Baylor next Saturday, while WVU's regular season concludes with a home game against TCU next Wednesday night and a road game at Cincinnati next Saturday. 
 
This Saturday's game will tip off at 6 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Joel Godett and King McClure). Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi gets things started at 5 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
 
Tickets remain and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.