The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board

(As promised, here’s the F Double. It begins after the jump.)

It’s going to happen today, I promise. I’m in and out of the ~~house~~ office this morning for some work stuff, but I’ll finish and deliver it this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I don’t think we ever asked ourselves, “Self, what would happen if Bruce Irvin were to bear down on Skyler Howard.” But we have an answer now after Howard decided yesterday was the day to address some past tweets from Irvin.

@BIrvin_WVU11 Im not gonna sit back and act like I didn’t see these.. Guess I’m just “built different” cause I’m the only one to call u out pic.twitter.com/45w7RVkV80

— Skyler Howard (@SkylerDonHoward) February 9, 2017

It went on from there, and Smoking Musket has your comprehensive recap of a trying time that formed alliances on Team Irvin as well as Team Howard and in the middle.

You are looking live at the Lloyd Noble Center, site of tonight’s sure-to-be-close Big 12 game between 13th-ranked West Virginia and 14-loss Oklahoma. I don’t know that I forgot about this, but still: I passed by a framed photo here that commemorated the Sooners and their trip to the 2016 Final Four. Today, they’re two games clear of everybody else for last place in the conference standings.

The Mountaineers? Alone in third again after Iowa State huh’d its way though a loss to Texas last night. So, who knows with that team? Who knows with a lot of these teams?

Baylor at Oklahoma State is really interesting tonight, and the Cowboys could help WVU with a sixth straight win. That coupled with a Mountaineers win brings the Bears and WVU even again in the standings, a game ahead of Iowa State and TCU, which are tied for fourth, and two games behind Kansas, which may have pulled the Keyser Soze by almost getting caught and then running and hiding. The 2 and 3 seeds are good for the Big 12 tournament, because you avoid the specter of the Jayhawks in Kansas City before the final, but WVU and Baylor both have the hope of Kansas dropping another game before or after losing to the Mountaineers and/or at Baylor. Striking distance is good.

It’s probably the theme tonight, too. WVU and Oklahoma really can’t get away from one another. The game last month went to overtime. The Big 12 semifinal last year was wild. The game here last year was won on a tip-in at the buzzer. Four other Big 12 games have been decided by 10 points or less. We know this to be Oklahoma’s thing. Four overtime games (three overtime losses). Three wins by eight points or less, nine losses by the same margin. Four of those losses have come in the past five games, and Oklahoma is 0-5 since winning at the Coliseum.

The Sooners can’t figure it out with their young roster, but their leader has been shaky, too. Jordan Woodard kindly put on a clinic in Morgantown last month, and he looked to be all the way back from an illness that cost him four full games and slowed him in another before Oklahoma won just before visiting WVU. He had 20 points, four rebounds, five assists and four steals, and he hit baskets to force overtime and to win the game in overtime. He followed that with 21 points in a double overtime loss against Iowa State.

Since then? Not himself.

The career 38.5 percent shooter is just 8 of 37 since scoring 21 points against Iowa State on Jan. 21.

He’s been better from behind the 3-point line, going 5 of 16 during that span — 3 of 6 at Texas Tech on Saturday. Woodard is a career 39 percent shooter from behind the arc, though he was 45.5 percent a year ago playing off the point.

In the last three games, the former Edmond Memorial star has failed to make it to the free-throw line.

“We need his productivity,” Sooners coach Lon Kruger said. “We need his consistent play out there at the point guard spot. We need him to bounce back and have another good one against West Virginia.”

(Woodard needs free throws.) It’s harder to predict the Mountaineers. Close game? Runaway? One before the other? They’ve had some of their best performances on the road, but wins at Oklahoma State and Iowa State are leveled out by losses at Texas Tech and Kansas State. WVU crushed No. 1 Baylor and No. 2 Kansas at home but also lost to these Sooners and the Cowboys. Win at Virginia, escape at home against Texas A&M.

But here’s a fun and constructive way to judge the Mountaineers the rest of the way: Eight games to go, five against teams they’ve beaten, three against teams they’ve lost to, one of the former and three of the latter are on the road. Oklahoma State has come a long way since the start of conference play and a 17-point loss to WVU. There’s no reason the Mountaineers can’t make similar strides, and beating teams that beat them is a good way to prove it.