The ESPN BPI Expects West Virginia to Protect Home Floor vs. Arizona State

It’s a rather quick turnaround for the West Virginia Mountaineers, who are coming off yet another massive win, this time over second-ranked Iowa State.

Tonight, Darian DeVries and Co. will welcome the Arizona State Sun Devils to the WVU Coliseum for the first time in what will be the first-ever matchup between the two programs.

According to the ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI) matchup predictor, West Virginia has a 75.2% chance to improve to 14-4, while Arizona State has a 24.8% chance to pick up their second win in league play.

Given Arizona State’s struggles throughout the first half of the season, this number feels like it’s in the right spot. They have the talent to win some games in the Big 12 and aren’t likely to finish in the bottom three or four, so that’s why it’s hard to justify going much higher than the 75%. Plus, can WVU control its emotions and put the Iowa State win to bed?

For the Mountaineers to remain in the Big 12 title picture, they really needed to go 1-1 at worst last week against a pair of top-10 teams, and they did exactly that. They fought as long as they could on the road at Houston but just wore out at the end of the second half. DeVries’ squad was able to bounce back and protect its home floor on Saturday, knocking off No. 2 Iowa State on the day they honored the legendary Jerry West.

The Sun Devils lost both of their games last week against UCF and Cincinnati by six and seven points, respectively. In their loss to UCF, ASU shot the ball extremely well, going 52% from the floor and 50% (12/24) from three-point range. They accomplished just about everything they wanted to do offensively. The problem is that UCF did as well. The loss to Cincinnati was more of an old-school slugfest where they found themselves trailing by 14 at the half. They outscored the Bearcats in the second half, but it was too little, too late.

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