John Paul Jones Arena – Charlottesville, VA
Tip-off: Saturday, 2:00 p.m. ET
Line: N/A

Undefeated #6 Virginia and #25 West Virginia meet for the second year in a row as ranked foes.

Virginia will look to beat their neighbors to the left for the second straight season when they host the Mountaineers on Saturday afternoon. Almost a year ago to this day in (Dec. 8) 2015, the then-#10 Cavaliers beat West Virginia (#14 at the time) at Madison Square Garden in NY for the Jimmy V Classic. The 70-54 win (UVA – 4.5) was fueled by the return of now-senior G London Perrantes, who’d just gone through an appendectomy last season for coach Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers. This season’s tilt will be marked by the opposite, the loss of would-be impact Memphis transfer F Austin Nichols. Coach Bennett dismissed Nichols from the team last week but Virginia rolled right along in defeating Iowa, Ohio State and Providence all since Nov. 25. Wins over Iowa and Providence were in the Emerald Classic in Florida while the win on Wednesday evening was at home over the Buckeyes in the Big Ten-ACC challenge. Virginia has failed to cover in their last two wins as 12-point favorites over Providence and Ohio State respectively. Virginia, who will be playing their fourth game in the last nine days, was undefeated at home last season (15-0, 8-5 ATS) and the Cavaliers are a dominant 69-4 at home since 2012-13 (37-23-1 ATS). While coach Bob Huggins’ squad entered the season in the top-25, they’ve still been very much under the national radar. West Virginia padded their record and built confidence with a very soft handful of opening games (wins over Mount St. Mary’s, New Hampshire and Mississippi Valley State) before annihilating Illinois in the NIT season tip-off at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY (89-57, WVU -9.5). The Mountaineers would suffer their only loss, getting upended as 12.5-point favorites against Temple in the NIT tip-off championship game, 81-77. West Virginia’s most recent win to date was on the 28th where they walloped Manhattan at home 108-61(WVU -29) and forced 40 turnovers in the process. The Mountaineers, who fell to Cinderella Stephen F. Austin as a No. 3 seed in last season’s NCAA tournament, were 7-4 (6-5 ATS) on the road last year.

Losing their leading scorer and top two rebounders from last season’s stellar roster hasn’t fazed coach Huggins. It’s always been a next-man-up philosophy for West Virginia. Coach Huggins has ten players averaging 10+ minutes per game with nobody playing more than the 26 minutes that G Jevon Carter (9.0 PPG, 3.0 SPG) gets. Carter, tied for sixth in the nation in steals per game, is one of seven Mountaineers to average more than one steal per game, and is the fulcrum of coach Huggins’ trademark pressure that is annually amongst the nation’s leaders in steals and turnovers forced. Virginia’s patient and almost-stagnant approach on offense has proven to be kryptonite to Huggins’ frenetic full-court defense in the past. Stephen F. Austin, while also a team that liked to press, slowed down in the halfcourt with great success in their NCAA Tournament upset of West Virginia. Huggins will probably have to give his impressive and highly-improved frontcourt of F Esa Ahmad (13.2 PPG, 1.5 SPG) and F Nathan Adrian (13.5 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 4.5 APG) more minutes than the mid-20’s they’ve been playing in blowouts. Both Ahmad and Adrian have seen their scoring averages rise from less than 5.0 points per game last season to now shouldering the offensive load. Ahmad goes into Saturday’s contest with two 19 point games under his belt while Adrian has been steady with double-figures in every contest and also leads West Virginia in rebounds and assists. G Daxter Miles Jr. (7.3 PPG) was the Mountaineers’ second-leading returning scorer from last season but missed the start of this year’s season (three games) with illness. Miles Jr. had a season-high 11 points in 16 minutes against Manhattan and is West Virginia’s best perimeter threat.

Like West Virginia, Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers are very well-balanced (especially without Nichols). That said, their undoubted leader is the aforementioned Perrantes (10.6 PPG, 4.0 APG, 40% 3PT). Perrantes has transformed himself from a defensive specialist freshman starter who was reluctant to ever take a shot as an underclassman to the guy Bennett wants with the ball in his hands in key moments. Very capable from deep, as he showed in last season’s loss to Syracuse in the NCAA tournament, Perrantes can reach another gear on offense when needed – as he did on Wednesday night in Virginia’s 63-61 win over Ohio State. Perrantes scored 15 second-half points but the Cavaliers had to sweat out a missed three-point attempt from Ohio State at the buzzer. In shooting 50 percent, the Buckeyes were the first team to break 37 percent from the field against Virginia’s usually always-stingy pack line defense. You won’t see more of a contrast in effective defensive style than coach Bennett’s half court suffocation on one end that funnels the offense into contested long-range jumpers, and Huggins’ frenetic, trapping full court press when Virginia has the ball. West Virginia wants to create 20 turnovers, while Virginia regularly takes care of the ball well enough to keep their turnover number in single digits. Last season, West Virginia forced the Cavaliers into 19 miscues, but Virginia was able to force 18 turnovers of their own while shooting a blistering 62.8% from the field in the Jimmy V Classic win. Team rebounding takes new meaning when it comes to this season’s Cavaliers with seven players averaging between three and five rebounds per game, while nine players average at least 14 minutes per game and all of them pitch in 4.7 points per game or better. Players to keep an eye on are Junior F Isaiah Wilkins (6.7 PPG, 1.4 BPG, 1.9 SPG), one of the better defensive players in the country, and 6’5” G Marial Shayok (9.3 PPG in 18 MPG) a great weapon off the bench as Virginia’s sixth man. Shayok hit the eventual game-winner in Wednesday night’s victory over Ohio State.