Stakes High In Conference Battle Between UConn and West Virginia

Sports News - February 22nd, 2010 - Written By John Ritter

The clock is ticking for both the Connecticut Huskies and West Virginia Mountaineers, but in drastically different ways.

The Mountaineers, eight in the country, are clinging to fading hopes for a conference regular-season title, and a better seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskies are simply striving for an appearance in that tournament at all. Fading in the standings, UConn can take a huge step back to relevance on Monday night when they host the Mountaineers on Monday night.

Despite it's mediocrity this year, the Huskies have only lost at home once to West Virginia in the last five meetings. Still, the Mountaineers are favored by 2 1/2, according College Basketball Betting Lines found at one of the top online sportsbooks, BetED.

West Virginia has become one of the better team's in the Big East, as predicted, but recently fell into a thorny patch in February. It lost back-to-back games for the first time this season, and are two games out of the conference lead. The shooting hasn't exactly improved, but rebounding with a win over 10th-place Seton Hall certainly helps.

The Mountaineers led by as much as 19 in the second half, and shot a blistering 75-percent in the final minutes to win 75-63.

“Sometimes when we get up big, we get too lackadaisical and just stop doing what got us the lead, so we need to work on that,” forward Kevin Jones told STATS. “We weren’t getting the shots that we were getting in the first half because we weren’t finding the seams or the open spots that we usually do.”

The Huskies have been on the road to recovery since getting back head coach Jim Calhoun. During his six-game leave, they lost three-straight to fall deep into the Big East leaderboard, but won a huge game against Villanova, 84-75, on the road.

Then it was an easy follow-up against Rutgers, and suddenly reaching 9-9 in conference is a real possibility.

“At this point, we’re desperate,” leading scorer Jerome Dyson said. “We’ve got to win. That’s our main goal right now is to take it one game at a time and play as hard as possible. This was a big confidence builder for us and we have to look forward to Monday’s game.”

Dyson led the Huskies' charge against Rutgers with 20 points, but Kemba Walker's 16 weren't far behind.

Connecticut has only lost to West Virginia four times in the 18-game history, and won the most-recent meeting in January 2009. Four players, including Dyson and Walker reached double figures in that game.

The Mountaineers haven't beaten UConn since the 2008 Big East tournament. They are 2-6 ATS in the last eight meetings.