West Virginia @ Kansas preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 16, 2019 ) West Virginia 53, Kansas 78

Conference tournament season provides every team an opportunity to overcome a poor showing in the regular season - no matter how bad it may have been at times - and gives it a chance to forge a path to the NCAA Tournament. No. 10 seed West Virginia is halfway home in terms of pulling off an improbable run and can take another step toward an automatic berth into the Big Dance on Friday when it meets 18th-ranked and third-seeded Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals in Kansas City, Mo.

West Virginia dropped five conference games by at least 22 points en route to a 4-14 finish in the Big 12 and provided little evidence it could potentially run the table against four likely NCAA Tournament teams, but close wins versus No. 7 seed Oklahoma (72-71) on Wednesday and No. 2 seed Texas Tech (79-74) on Friday have the Mountaineers riding high. "Two down, two to go. … This is our chance. … We basically lost four starters and these guys have been great. … They believe we can win and it seems like every game somebody different steps up," coach Bob Huggins told reporters Thursday. Although Kansas is responsible for one of West Virginia's lopsided losses (78-53 on Feb. 16), the Jayhawks could only manage a split during the regular season after finding itself on the wrong end of a 65-64 affair that gave the Mountaineers their first league victory on Jan. 19. The Jayhawks improved to 21-0 in non-true road games Thursday, defeating Texas 65-57 in quarterfinal action.

TV: 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2

ABOUT WEST VIRGINIA (14-19): The latest unlikely player to step up for Huggins was freshman Emmitt Matthews Jr., who entered Thursday averaging 3.9 points but more than doubled his previous season high with 28 points against the country's second-ranked scoring defense. Junior Jermaine Haley enjoyed his first career double-double against the Sooners (14 points, 12 boards) and has emerged as a critical part of the Mountaineers' resurgence over the last seven contests, averaging 17.6 points and 7.4 rebounds. Freshman Derek Culver only has 14 points through two games at the Big 12 Tournament and has been inconsistent offensively since the beginning of February but has been relentless on the boards since the beginning of last month, averaging 12.5 rebounds over those 12 games.

ABOUT KANSAS (24-8): The conference's second-highest scoring offense got it done on defense versus the Longhorns, holding Texas to three field goals over the final seven-plus minutes and 35.7 percent shooting for the game. With leading scorer and rebounder Dedric Lawson (19.0 points, 10.4 rebounds) enduring a sub-par performance by his standards Thursday, David McCormack continued what has been a strong finish to his freshman season with 13 points and nine boards. "We did want to give their bigs something to guard. … David has scored the ball better of late and he's getting more and more confident and obviously playing at a much higher level now that he's had more opportunities in the last month, month and a half," coach Bill Self said.

TIP-INS

1. Kansas has won at least 24 games in 14 consecutive seasons.

2. West Virginia, which has reached the title game in each of the last three seasons, is the first No. 10 seed to advance to the semifinals since the Big 12 went to 10 teams in 2011-12.

3. Lawson is 32-for-35 from the foul line over his last five outings.

PREDICTION: West Virginia 70, Kansas 68