MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Last year at this time, West Virginia was playing out its remaining games of the season.
 
This year, the Mountaineers (15-9 overall and 6-7 in Big 12 play) are still in NCAA Tournament contention with seven regular season games left, beginning with Saturday afternoon's matchup at 15-9 Baylor in its beautiful, new 7,500-seat Foster Pavilion.
 
The Bears, 7-6 in Big 12 play, boast an NCAA NET ranking of 26 - 17 spots better than West Virginia, who is 43 following its 73-69 loss to BYU on Tuesday night.
 
Baylor is also coming off a loss to Houston on Monday night despite shooting 57.9% from the floor for the game. It has a .500 record against the top three quadrants, and like West Virginia, is hunting for wins to make its postseason resume more appealing.
 
"Our message to (the players) is, 'Hey, it's February, and we're still playing for something.' There are a lot of teams that aren't right now," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said Friday morning via Zoom. "That's not the case with us, but we have to do our part and go win games. They understand that, and we understand that."
 
Teams have wisely been focusing on stopping Mountaineer guard Javon Small, who still leads the Big 12 in scoring with an 18.5 points-per-game average despite a sub-double-digit effort in Tuesday night's loss to BYU.
 
Small was limited to just five shot attempts in WVU's 72-61 victory over Utah last Saturday, and he only got off four in the BYU loss, including one attempt in the second half. 
 
Teams are taking their chances with Small's supporting cast by forcing them to try and beat them. It worked in West Virginia's favor against Utah, but it didn't against BYU.
 
"Javon Small is a heck of a player and somebody we're very familiar with," Baylor coach Scott Drew said Thursday. "At Oklahoma State, he played very well against us. We recruited him last year in the portal and have a lot of respect for him as a player."
 
To Small's credit, he hasn't tried to force the issue like many top scorers would. He was credited with eight assists in the Utah win, and he got nine against BYU earlier this week.
 
"He's our best offensive player, everybody knows that, and other teams know that, so they're going to try and limit him, and we're going to find ways to get him free," DeVries explained. "He draws a lot of gravity to him so if you are drawing two defenders to take you away, it's freeing other people up. 
 
"(Freeing him up) is something we're trying to do every game. At times, there is only so much you can do if they want to commit two people to him all the time; now you've got to take what they give you, and I think Javon has done that," DeVries said, adding, "He'll score. They've just done a good job these last couple of games, but that balance has been good for us."

DeVries thought his offense played efficiently enough to defeat the Cougars, but defensively, there were too many breakdowns at key moments, especially in the second half.
 
"We allowed them to shoot 55% in the second half, and you are not winning those games," he pointed out. "We actually played good offense, but defensively, we just made too many mistakes, and we just don't have that big of a margin of error to allow that to happen."
 
"Defensively, (they are a) really sound, really aggressive, really athletic team (who) makes it hard to score," Drew noted. "And they are really good when they can – like any team – get turnovers and get in transition."
 
Limiting a Baylor team that is averaging 87.5 points per game at home and outscoring teams by more than 26 points per game in its new arena is going to be a significant challenge for the Mountaineers.
 
The Bears have also had considerable success against West Virginia, tallying 94 points in last meeting and winning six straight against the Mountaineers.
 
Many consider freshman guard VJ Edgecombe a possible top-10 pick in this year's NBA draft. The Bimini, Bahamas, resident is averaging 15 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, while shooting better than 46% from 3-point range in 13 Big 12 games so far this season.
 
DeVries admitted he's going to present matchup issues on Saturday.
 
"He's playing terrific. When you watch the film, he just stands out, especially in the open floor," DeVries said. "It's impressive. That's a tough matchup, and there is a reason he's so highly thought of on the NBA draft boards. It certainly shows up on tape."
 
The other big matchup challenge is 6-foot-7, 244-pound senior forward Norchad Omier, who is averaging a team-best 15.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. Omier began his college career at Arkansas State, and DeVries faced him in the NCAA Tournament two years ago when he was playing for Miami and DeVries was coaching Drake.
 
"He's one of those guys who just has a great knack for going and getting the ball," DeVries said.
 
Omier's 1,561 career rebounds are 19^th in NCAA history, and he needs just 10 more to move past Wake Forest's Tim Duncan for 17^th place. He already has 12 double-doubles in points and rebounds so far this season.
 
The Bears have two other quality scoring options in freshman guard Robert Wright, averaging 12.6 points per game, and senior guard Jeremy Roach, averaging 11.4 points per contest.
 
Joining Edgecombe, Omier, Wright and Roach in the starting lineup is 6-foot-5 junior guard Langston Love. Baylor is down one key player with the loss to 6-foot-10 junior forward Josh Olianwuna to an injury suffered in last Saturday's win against UCF.
 
He was averaging 7.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.

Drew mentioned 6-foot-10 freshman forward Marino Dubravcic as a potential replacement. Otherwise, the Bears will likely go just seven deep as they did during Monday night's loss to Houston.
 
Saturday's game will tip off at 2 p.m. ET and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Chuckie Kempf and King McClure).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and studio host David Kahn gets things started at 1 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.