MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Following a two-game road trip that spanned five days, West Virginia returns to the friendly confines of Hope Coliseum to welcome Kansas State at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The Mountaineers (13-7, 4-3) notched their first victory outside of Morgantown last Wednesday by defeating Arizona State, 75-63. WVU then suffered its third lopsided loss at a top 10 opponent in Big 12 play, falling 88-53 at No. 1 Arizona on Saturday.

Now comes the first of two regular season contests against Kansas State, which has struggled this season, in particularly in league play. The Wildcats (10-10, 1-6) have allowed at least 78 points in every Big 12 game and are surrendering an average of 85.9 points to conference foes.

On the flip side, Kansas State leads the league with an average of 18.7 assists and ranks in the top half of the Big 12 with an average of 84.1 points.

“We need to be efficient offensively, regardless of the raw number,” WVU first-year head coach Ross Hodge said. ”You look at our Arizona State game, we were incredibly efficient with points per possession and we were able to hold them to under a point per possession, which is what you want to do. I don’t think it’s to our benefit to get into an up-and-down, high possession and high-scoring game against a team like Kansas State. I feel like that’s when they’re at their best. But we also have to able to take advantage when we do have opportunities in transition. We need to be opportunistic and can’t turn it into a complete half court game only, because it’s hard to score in the half court.”

The Mountaineers were held to fewer than 60 points for the third time in Big 12 play against unbeaten Arizona and shot a season-worst 34 percent from the field in the setback (22 for 64), which followed two straight games with better than 50 percent shooting in victories over Colorado and the Sun Devils.

In four Big 12 road contests to this point, the Mountaineers are shooting 41 percent from the field, whereas they’re converting at a 48.7 percent clip in three league games at home. 

While that at least partially can be attributed to varying levels of competition, WVU is 1-3 on the road, 0-4 in neutral site games and 12-0 at home.

“You have to protect home floor. There has to be a certain level of urgency to protecting that, because it’s hard to win on the road and hard to win on the road in this league in particular,” Hodge said. “You look at the start we had and three of your first four road games are against top 10 teams in the country. There needs to be a heightened sense of awareness to protecting home court, and I’ve told our guys they need to take pride in it. But just because we’ve been good at home to this point doesn’t mean we’re going to go win tomorrow.”

To give itself the best opportunity at another home triumph, the Mountaineers will look to slow down the Big 12’s leading scorer in 6-foot-4 guard P.J. Haggerty.

Haggerty is averaging 23.4 points and has scored more than 20 in 15 games, while reaching double figures in all 20 contests. He shoots almost 49 percent from the field and is second in the Big 12 with 152 free-throw attempts and third with 110 made foul shots.

From his time as coach at North Texas, Hodge is familiar with opposing Haggerty, who played at Tulsa and then Memphis while averaging north of 20 points each of the last two seasons.

“He’s an incredible individual talent. He does such a good job of drawing fouls,” Hodge said. “They do a good job of putting the ball in his hands in space and he has shooting around him. He’s an extremely tough cover. He has great touch in the midrange. He puts so much pressure on your defense. You have to have really good discipline to make sure you’re showing your hands and not picking up cheap fouls.”

KSU head coach Jerome Tang may be forced to rely on Haggerty even more as the Wildcats have been short-handed of late and will continue to play without their second-leading scorer in swingman Abdi Bashi Jr. 

Bashi averages 13.2 points and leads the squad by a wide margin with 67 three-pointers, but recently underwent surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot and has missed the last two games. 

Forward Khamari McGriff has also missed the last two games, though he was labeled questionable for last Saturday’s 24-point home loss to Kansas. McGriff averages 10.2 points and 4.3 rebounds and shoots 74 percent from the field. In the two most recent games he played, the 6-9 McGriff scored 29 points and made 14-of-16 field-goal attempts.

“McGriff is day to day and one you won’t really know about until you show up that night,” Hodge said. “Coach Tang does a great job of giving all those guys confidence, so you know if they’re on the floor, they’re going to be playing with a certain level of confidence. They’re playing with a level of freedom that maybe they weren’t playing with when they had certain substitution patterns. They can put a lot of pressure on you in a lot of different ways.” 

WVU remains the lowest-scoring team in the Big 12 at 72.3 points, but is second to Houston in the conference in scoring defense by allowing 64.3 points.

While Treysean Eaglestaff has increased his production from non-conference play to become the Mountaineers’ second-leading scorer at 10.6 points, the team’s top scorer, guard Honor Huff, has struggled of late.

Huff is averaging 16.3 points, but across seven Big 12 games, he’s shooting 34.2 percent (27 for 79) and 30.6 percent from long range (19 for 62). In the most recent two-game road trip out west, Huff was held to 18 points on 6 for 24 shooting, including 4 of 17 from deep.

“The game always opens up for good players,” Hodge said. “Don’t feel like you have to press to get the look and then when you get the look, you kind of press and rush a little bit because you anticipate I may not get this again, so I need to make this one.”

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For the majority of Big 12 play thus far, Hodge has elected to utilize an eight-man rotation. He’s gone with a starting lineup of Jasper Floyd, Huff, Eaglestaff, Brenen Lorient and Harlan Obioha, while regularly utilizing Amir Jenkins, DJ Thomas and Chance Moore in a reserve role.

With the outcome all but decided last Saturday, Hodge inserted Morris Ugusuk for 11 minutes at Arizona, most of which came in the second half.

He did not, however, make it a 10-man rotation and count on Jackson Fields, a 6-8 Troy transfer who has played in nine games, including three within the Big 12. 

Fields, who did not make his WVU debut until November 30 against Mercyhurst as a result of offseason wrist surgery, has not seen action in three straight games. He last played 10 minutes in a loss at Houston on January 13.

Hodge provided an update Monday on Fields and indicated options are being weighed for what’s to come in the near future.

“No setbacks or nothing wrong with him, per se,” Hodge said. “It’s been a combination of Harlan has played really well in Big 12 play and Lorient has been good in certain situations. Because of who we’ve played, we’ve decided to play Chance at the [power forward] more. He gave us a big thrust early. He missed a lot of time and he still is trying to get all the way back from the surgery that he had. Some of it is just trying to continue to get his grip strength back in his arm. There were no restrictions from a basketball standpoint, but he was still dealing with limitations in the weight room. 

“We’re trying to work him back into it, while being mindful that he probably is at the threshold of playing in too many games to receive a medical redshirt. We haven’t made any decisions on that. There are no finalities, but there is an awareness that if he plays in a few more games, then that option is completely off the table. We are being cautious with that decision right now. If he were to play in a couple more games, that’s out the window. Just trying to see where his minutes could come, where he can help us, can he get 100 percent comfortable and if it’s 2 or 3 minutes a night, is that worth him burning a year of eligibility? That’s kind of where we are weighing everything with him right now.” 

Fields is averaging 4.3 points and 3.4 rebounds across 14.2 minutes.