Texas Tech is set to take on West Virginia at 6 p.m. on Wednesday in a Phillips 66 Big 12 Men's Basketball Championship first-round matchup at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The Red Raiders will play in the conference tournament with Corey Williams as the interim head coach.
Tech (16-15, 5-13 Big 12) is making its 26th appearance in the Big 12 Championship following finishing as the runner-up in last year's tournament. The Mountaineers (18-13, 7-11 Big 12) enter the postseason on a two-game winning streak with wins over Iowa State and Kansas State to finish the regular season. Tech was on a four-game winning streak before losing its final three games, including dropping a 71-68 regular-season finale to Oklahoma State last Saturday in Lubbock. TTU and WVU split their regular-season matchups with the road teams winning. Tech earned a 78-72 win on February 18 in Morgantown after the Mountaineers had won 76-61 on January 25 in Lubbock.
The two programs are meeting in the Big 12 postseason tournament for the fourth time with WVU holding a 2-1 all-time advantage. The Mountaineers eliminated the Red Raiders from the tournament in 2019 and 2018 after Tech had won in 2013. Tech is 16-25 all-time in the Big 12 Championship, including going 8-11 in first-round matchups. WVU is making its 10th trip to the conference tournament where it is 9-9 all-time. Both programs are looking to win the tournament for the first time.
The Tech-WVU winner will advance to play top-seeded Kansas at 2 p.m. on Thursday in a quarterfinal matchup. Tech and KU met last season in the Championship Final with the Jayhawks winning the title with a 74-65 victory.
Kevin Obanor leads the Red Raiders for the season with 14.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, while De'Vion Harmon is at 13.6 points per game and leads the team with 111 assists and 51 steals. Obanor and Harmon were both All-Big 12 Honorable Mention selections. Pop Isaacs earned Big 12 All-Freshman Team honors after averaging 11.3 points per game and leading Tech with 59 3-pointers. He was 3-for-6 on 3-pointers last Saturday against Oklahoma State in a game where Tech matched a season-high with 14 3-pointers. Jaylon Tyson scored a career-high 27 points in the last matchup against WVU and comes into the postseason averaging 10.9 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. In the past five games, Fardaws Aimaq leads Tech with 14.8 points and 10.8 rebounds in those contests. He led the Red Raiders with nine points and eight rebounds in the loss to OSU after recording 18 rebounds and 13 points in the road loss at Kansas last Tuesday. Aimaq has played in 10 games this season, averaging 11.8 points and 8.3 rebounds including producing 14 points and 12 rebounds against WVU in Morgantown.
Obanor averaged 10.7 points and 5.0 rebounds per game during the 2022 Big 12 Championship, including going for 11 points and six rebounds in the championship final against Kansas. A fifth-year senior, Obanor has produced 2,123 points, 1,088 rebounds and 37 double-doubles in his career. Aimaq is now at 1,001 rebounds in his career along with having scored 1,174 points while Harmon has 1,349 points and 297 rebounds in his career. The three players are the veterans on a young team which has four freshmen who have played important roles throughout the season along with Tyson and Batcho who are in their sophomore season. For the season, 40.7 points per game of the team's 73.7 points average has come from underclassmen.
Erik Stevenson leads West Virginia with 15.5 points per game this season, while Tre Mitchell tops the team with 5.3 rebounds per game to go along with scoring 11.5. Stevenson was named the Big 12 Player of the Week and Big 12 Newcomer of the Week on Monday afternoon after also earning All-Big 12 Third Team honors on Sunday. A fifth-year senior, Stevenson ended the regular season with 23 points against Iowa State before going off for 27 with five 3-pointers against Kansas State. He also scored 27 against the Red Raiders with six 3-pointers in the last matchup. WVU has four players averaging in double figures this season with Kedrian Johnson scoring 11.0 and Emmitt Matthews, Jr. adding 10.3. Matthews was a freshman in the 2019 conference tournament and scored 28 points in the 79-74 win over the Red Raiders. He is the only player still playing from either team from that matchup on March 14, 2019. In that game, Matthews was 10-for-14 from the field and also added eight rebounds.
SERIES HISTORY
West Virginia leads the all-time series by a 17-9 margin and is 2-1 in Big 12 Championship games against the Red Raiders… WVU knocked Tech out of the Big 12 Championship in 2018 and 2019… The Red Raiders would bounce back from that 2019 quarterfinal loss by advancing to the championship game of the NCAA Tournament… The teams split this season with the road teams winning the games… Tech swept the series last season, including earning a 60-53 at the WVU Coliseum on February 5, 2022, to improve to 7-3 in Big 12 play at that time.
