MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia begins its final regular season road trip with a two-game swing of Utah, starting Saturday night against 25^th-ranked BYU at the Marriott Center in Provo.
 
WVU will remain in the Beehive State to play Utah on Tuesday night.
 
BYU and West Virginia are now solidly in the NCAA Tournament according to ESPN.com Bracketology unveiled earlier today. Bracketologist Joe Lunardi has the Cougars as an eight-seed and West Virginia back off the bubble as a 10-seed following its Tuesday night victory over TCU.
 
BYU began its current five-game winning streak with a 73-69 victory over West Virginia on Feb. 11 in Morgantown and has since added wins against Kansas State, Kansas, Arizona and Arizona State.
 
Egor Demin was the star of the win over the Mountaineers with a team-high 16 points as the Cougars rallied from six points down with six minutes left and scored the game's final five points.
 
BYU's size, rebounding and overall depth played a big role in the win. The Cougars, using 12 players compared to just eight for the Mountaineers, had a 35 to 25 advantage on the glass and a 32 to 18 edge in bench scoring.
 
"It was a game we felt like we had in control for a while and weren't able to finish the game off," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said during his weekly United Bank feature posted on social media. "They are an incredibly talented offensive team who is very difficult to control in transition. Then in the halfcourt, they've just got a lot of guys who can go make plays and make shots."
 
BYU was terrific at the Marriott Center in its recent 34-point blowout victory over then-23^rd-ranked Kansas, shooting 51.5% and holding the Jayhawks to just 36.5%.
 
Guard Richie Saunders was BYU's high-point man against Kansas with 22. Saunders was also outstanding with 23 points in BYU's recent 96-95 victory at Arizona.
 
"We did a pretty good job against their transition offense, and we have to do that again," DeVries said. "Replicating that is a hard thing to do, especially when they are at home. They play faster at home.
 
"For us, it's being really in-tuned to what they're trying to get on every offensive possession and try and limit that as much as possible," he added.
 
The recent surge has boosted BYU (20-8 overall) into a tie with Iowa State for fourth place in the Big 12 standings with 11-6 conference marks.
 
West Virginia (17-11 overall) is in a three-way tie with TCU and Baylor in seventh place with 8-9 league records. The Mountaineers used 23 points and 10 assists from guard Javon Small to defeat TCU 73-55 at the Coliseum earlier this week.
 
WVU has won two of its last three games.
 
West Virginia will be making its first-ever visit to Provo but has faced the Cougars four prior times. Three of the games took place in Morgantown and the other, on Dec. 29, 1973, was played in Portland, Oregon, as part of the Far West Classic.
 
BYU holds a 3-1 advantage in series play.
 
Saturday night's game will tip off at 10 p.m. ET and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Rich Hollenberg and King McClure).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and studio host David Kahn will get the evening started at 9 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.