Eilert

There are now only four more non-conference games left, before the Mountaineers hit the long road to Houston for the first of their 18 Big 12 games.

Kriisa will make his much anticipated season debut tomorrow in the Hall of Fame Classic game to be played in Springfield, Mass. Kriisa is a transfer from Arizona and missed the season’s first nine games while under suspension from the NCAA.

Akok had suffered a medical emergency in the first week of the season when the Mountaineers played an exhibition game against George Mason University. He returned in a homecourt win over Drexel.

Naveh played significant minutes against the Dragons as the Mountaineers ended a four-game stretch of home games with a win.

Akok

As of this past Tuesday, all four of the remaining non-conference opponents have winning records.

UMass is 5-2 with losses to Harvard and Towson. Radford and Coach Darris Nichols are 7-4 and faces both VMI and Bucknell before playing West Virginia.

Toledo is currently 5-4 and Ohio State is 8-2. The WVU vs. Ohio State game is to be played in Cleveland on Dec. 30.

The long awaited Big 12 schedule now has first-year members Houston, Brigham Young, Central Florida and Cincinnati on it.

The Mountaineers will still have an 18-game conference schedule, playing only five teams twice (Cincnnati, Central Florida, Texas, TCU and Kansas State).

Kriisa

One of the pre-season conference favorites — Kansas — only visits Morgantown and doesn’t get the Mountaineers at home in Lawrence.

The other conference teams only coming to Morgantown and not getting home games against the Mountaineers are Brigham Young, Texas Tech and Baylor.

Houston, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma and Iowa State face WVU at home and don’t ever travel to Morgantown.

The far ranging Big 12 is now stuffed with 14 schools and WVU will play all of them at least once this season.

The lone first-year school expected to be a realistic contender for the regular season’s best conference record is Houston.

Naveh

Brigham Young, Central Florida and Cincinnati are not expected to come right in and make a big splash in the standings.

The Big 12 conference tournament will again take place in Kansas City.

Eilert’s player depth should take a friendly upturn with the addition of Kriisa and Akok and a continued maturity from freshman Naveh.

How “friendly” will be determined by their collective productivity and the number of minutes they play.