Allen Fieldhouse – Lawrence, KS
Tip-off: Monday, 9:00 pm ET
Line: Kansas -5.0, Total: 158.5

Both #13 West Virginia and #3 Kansas will be hoping to pick up a resume-boosting victory on Monday.

West Virginia faced Kansas State on Saturday, and the Mountaineers came away with an 85-66 victory as eight-point home favorites. They have now won two straight and five of their past six, and they have also covered in four of their past six. One thing West Virginia has done well recently is defend all over the court. The Mountaineers have held three of their past four opponents to under 40.0% shooting from the floor, and they have forced at least 15 turnovers in each of their past five games as well. The full-court press has been working to perfection, and they’ll be hoping to turn over the Jayhawks on Monday. Kansas, meanwhile, is coming off of an 80-79 victory at Texas Tech on Saturday, and the team is not playing its best basketball right now. The scary thing is that the Jayhawks have still won four of their past five, and they’ll have to turn things around soon. They should be amped up for this game on Monday, as they’ll be revenging an 85-69 defeat in Morgantown from Jan. 24. The Jayhawks have only hosted the Mountaineers four times in the history of this series, and Kansas is 4-0 SU and 3-1 ATS in those games. The team is, however, a miserable 0-6 ATS off a road win this season, and the Jayhawks are facing a Mountaineers team that is 15-6 ATS after three straight games forcing an opponent to commit 19 or more turnovers over the past three seasons.

The Mountaineers have one of the most balanced teams in the nation, as they are scoring 120.5 points per 100 possessions (7th in NCAA) and allowing just 91.4 (10th in NCAA). If they are going to beat Kansas on the road on Monday then they will need to be even sharper on both ends of the floor than usual. The guy to keep an eye on offensively in this game is F Esa Ahmad 911.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 1.2 SPG). The last time the Mountaineers faced the Jayhawks, Ahmad erupted for 27 points, five rebounds and a steal in 32 minutes of action. If he can come even close to putting up those kinds of numbers on Monday then West Virginia just might stun Kansas in Lawrence. The one thing he was doing well in that game was taking good shots, as he was able to score all 27 of those points in the flow of the offense. He’ll need to be selective once again on Monday, but he also must be aggressive when his team needs a bucket. G Jevon Carter (11.8 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 4.3 APG, 2.9 SPG) will also need to play a good game against Kansas here. Carter only had nine points against the Jayhawks in January, but he also had nine assists, eight boards and two steals in that game. If he can fill up the box score like that on Monday then the Mountaineers will be in good shape. They’ll just need guys like F Nathan Adrian (10.8 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 1.3 SPG), G Daxter Miles Jr. (9.5 PPG, 1.5 SPG) and G Tarik Phillip (9.3 PPG, 2.9 APG, 1.7 SPG) to do their parts as well.

Kansas might not be as good as West Virginia on the defensive end, but the Jayhawks are scoring a ridiculous 122.0 points per 100 possessions this season (5th in NCAA). They have one of the hardest backcourts in the country to cover, and a lot of that has to do with the ability of G Frank Mason III (20.1 PPG, 4.9 APG, 4.3 RPG, 1.4 SPG). Mason III is impossible to guard because he is one of the quicker guards in college basketball, but he can also really shoot the ball. He is hitting 49.8% of his field goals this season, and is also shooting a ridiculous 51.8% from three. Mason III was not quite 100% against Texas Tech on Saturday, and it’ll be interesting to see if he is fully recovered. He was feeling sick all week and that might have been a reason he fouled out of the game. The other member of this Jayhawks backcourt is G Devonte’ Graham (13.0 PPG, 4.5 APG, 1.5 SPG), who had just six points against Texas Tech and only 10 points against Kansas State on Feb. 6. Graham is far too good of a player to be scoring anything less than 15 points, so he’ll need to be more aggressive moving forward. One bright spot for the Jayhawks is that F Josh Jackson (16.6 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 3.0 APG, 1.6 SPG, 1.1 BPG) is really coming on lately. Jackson had a career-high 31 points against Texas Tech on Saturday, and he is playing his best ball right now. If he can come through with a big game on Monday then the Jayhawks should roll to an easy victory.