Two Big 12 men’s basketball teams desperate for a victory clash Wednesday night at the United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas (7 p.m. Eastern on ESPNU).

West Virginia (11-8/1-6) has struggled since the start of conference play, but Texas Tech (10-9/0-7) has been in an even greater slump.

It wasn’t that long ago that both clubs were in significantly better frames of mind, though.

The Red Raiders, who fell in overtime in the 2019 NCAA Championship game to Virginia (85-77) and were 27-10 last season with a run to the NCAA’s Sweet 16, started the 2022-23 campaign 10-2 and were ranked in the top 25 for several weeks. Since the start of Big 12 play, though, they’ve lost seven straight.

The Mountaineers’ 2022-23 path has been similar. They were 10-2 and ranked No. 24 nationally when conference action began on Dec. 31. They then proceeded to drop five Big 12 games in a row, four of them by seven points or less. West Virginia bounced back with a 74-65 win over TCU last Wednesday but then fell to Texas, 69-61, on Saturday.

Tech may still be looking for its first victory of the season in the Big 12, but the Mountaineers know they remain very dangerous.

“They have a lot of size, and they are going to throw a lot of people at you,� said WVU assistant coach Josh Eilert, who is in charge of West Virginia’s scouting report on the Red Raiders. “(Tech coach) Mark Adams has been notorious for his defenses, so isolations are going to be a struggle for anybody.

“I told our team that more than any time ever, we’re really going to have to move the ball,� added Eilert. “If we don’t move the ball from side-to-side and really pass it and share it, we’re going to struggle. If we get in the mode where we’re selfish and have guys who want to go one-on-one, they are going to run guys at you. They have an extreme help-side defense, but if we get them moving side-to-side, I think we’re going to get what we want.�

While West Virginia’s offense, which is averaging 77.0 points per game this season, has been good at times, it’s lacked consistency. It has averaged 82.6 points per game in its 11 victories and 69.4 points in its eight losses.

“I thought we did a really good job against TCU. We did a good job and controlled the game,� Eilert recalled of the nine-point win over the 14th-ranked Horned Frogs. “We really focused and nailed down our offense against TCU, but we slipped up against (No. 7) Texas. We didn’t have that mindset as much as we did against TCU, and we have to get back to cleaning up our offense and make sure we get really good looks.

“I tell our guys all the time that if we get good looks, we’re a helluva lot better offensive rebounding team, because we know where the shots are coming from. If the selfishness starts to creep in and we take shots out of the offense, it does us no good.�

When West Virginia first joined the Big 12 in 2012, it had great success in Lubbock, defeating the Red Raiders on their home court the first four times it traveled to West Texas. Things haven’t gone as well for the Mountaineers since, though, as they’ve lost five of their last six games at the United Supermarkets Arena with the only outlier being an 82-71 win at No. 7 Tech in 2021.

Wednesday’s contest will be the first between the two teams since 2014 where one (TTU alone five times) or the other (WVU alone seven times) or both (six times) are not ranked in the top 25. While the pair has split the 10 meetings in Lubbock, WVU holds a 16-8 overall advantage in the series.

“They really show up for their games, and their student section is really good,� Eilert said of Tech fans, whose average attendance of 13,367 this season is second in the Big 12 behind only Kansas (16,300). “This is probably going to be the second-best environment we’ve played in so far. They’re still packing the place, regardless of what they’ve done record-wise and their struggles. They’re really putting people in the seats, and their student section is as good as anybody in the country. This will be second only to Xavier, which was a really hard environment for us (in an 84-74 WVU loss). We have to work together and figure out how to come out of there with a win.�

Wren Baker began his official duties as West Virginia University’s director of athletics on Dec. 19.

After six years as the A.D. at North Texas, the 44-year-old Baker is familiar with the duties that being an athletic director entail, but he’s not going to rush into any rash decisions at WVU. He plans on getting a lay of the Mountaineer land before he starts to make any significant changes.

“Initially I’ll try to sit back and take it all in,� said Baker when asked about his plans for West Virginia’s athletic department. “I’m not somebody who thinks out loud. I prefer to internalize things before I react to them. I’m never afraid to make a tough decision, but I’m pretty thorough and analytical and deliberate in making sure it is the right decision. You won’t see a quick trigger reaction from me.

“I always tell fans that when I go to a (Dallas) Cowboys game, I get to be quick triggered and yell and holler, but I’m paid as an A.D. to do the opposite, not to be emotional, to not be overreactive. So, I’m pretty good at keeping it on the fairway.�

Baker takes over WVU’s athletic director position from Shane Lyons, who was dismissed by the University’s administration in November after seven years leading the Mountaineers. Now Baker moves into that role, and with 16 years of experience in intercollegiate athletic administration, he’s no stranger to the job.

“These jobs are usually all tough. Most of the time they don’t open for good reasons, so you have to deal with things,� noted Baker, who is a native of Valliant, Oklahoma. “I do think there is a lot of good work that has been done here in terms of facilities and infrastructure.

“These jobs are tough now with everything that is going on nationally, but you just have to keep getting up and chopping wood, as they say. To use a hockey term, you have to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is. That’s pretty hard in this day and age, but you are always trying to do that.�

The athletic director’s responsibilities have changed greatly since he first became A.D. at Rogers State (Okla.) University in 2006, and the position has even evolved significantly since he took over as the director of athletics at the University of North Texas in 2016.

Things like NIL and the transfer portal were barely even considered six years ago, but now they are major parts of the landscape of college athletics.

Part of the A.D.’s job remains the same as it has for decades, but many other aspects are entirely new.

“I think where this job has changed a lot in the last 10 years is most of us get into this because we’re very interested in developing people, but the job is requiring more and more of your bandwidth to be spent on the business side,� explained Baker. “I would love to be at practice every day and be around the kids every day. That’s what I enjoy the most, but you have to take care of other things that are important. That includes the acquisition of resources when it comes to facility space or the budget space or the NIL space. That’s particularly important right now. It doesn’t mean you can take your eye off the other things, but it is front of mind.

“Traditionally A.D.s spent maybe a third of their time trying to get resources, a third of their time making sure operations ran smoothly, whether that was compliance or whatever, and a third of their time with teams and their development and growth. Now you’re probably spending 60% of your time on the resource side and 40% split between the other two.

“It’s a different job now than it used to be and it is complex, but I always say it beats working in the paper mill my folks worked in when I was growing up,� he added. “My worst in college athletics is still better than a lot of other people’s best day in their jobs.�

More and more, college athletics seems to be morphing into professional sports. Whether those inside and outside the university ranks like the changes doesn’t matter too much, because the momentum in that direction isn’t about to change.

For administrators, the new college model has some things that are the same as the pros and others that are different.

“In pro sports, there is a business side and a team side, and usually they are fairly separate,� said Baker. “You have a G.M. who does the coach and talent acquisition. Then you also have a president for the business side, and they work about making money and those kinds of things. College athletics has always been more difficult, because the A.D. is involved in both. The coach has the most active role in the talent acquisition, but the A.D. is still somewhat involved in that. Then you also have the business side.�

Though he’s now in charge of a Power 5 athletic department, Baker has seen the college world from a variety of levels. When he was an A.D. at Rogers State (2006-10), the Hillcats were an NAIA member, though they moved to Division II shortly after he departed to become the athletic director at Northwest Missouri State (2010-13), which has long been a Division II power. After four years leading the Bearcats, he became the deputy director of athletics at Memphis (2013-15) and then Missouri (2015-16) before being hired by North Texas, which is a Division I program that has been a member of Conference USA but will be moving to the American Athletic Conference next year.

Have worked at so many different levels, Baker has an appreciation for those who have worked their way up.

“I loved my time at Division II, and I’ve hired some people with Division II backgrounds over the years,� he said. “A lot of times, people, especially from the Power 5 level, look down their nose at Division II ball or Division III ball, but it’s really the same job, the scale is just different. A lot of time people who work at that level are more well-rounded, because they don’t have a staff of several compliance people and several academic people. You kind of have to do all those things. It’s part of who I am, and I have a lot of respect for the folks who work at smaller colleges. They have to be a jack-of-all-trades.�

Baker has not only worked at a variety of levels, but he also spent time in coaching. He was a graduate assistant and basketball operations assistant at Oklahoma State, where he obtained his master’s degree in 2003. He also was the head men’s basketball coach at Rogers State for a year, leading the Hillcats to a 20-11 record in his lone season on the bench before he resigned to concentrate on his A.D.’s job.

“I think that’s helped me a lot; that plus coaching,� said Baker of his wide array of experience. “There is no question that if I had only spent my entire career in a high-resource conference school doing one thing, I would not have the same perspective that I have now.�

Like a major college coach, part of Baker’s duties as an athletic director will be dealing with the media at times. It’s something he doesn’t mind doing.

“I know I can’t control what is written, but I’d rather be able to provide context to it,� WVU’s new A.D. explained. “The best way to do that is build relationships, and the best way to build relationships is to make the media’s job as easy as possible.

“A lot of times A.D.s or coaches don’t like one story, so they burn the house down in terms of that relationship, and to me that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve always had a good relationship with the media everywhere I’ve been. If I thought something wasn’t fair or we didn’t have the opportunity to paint some context around it, I called and talked directly to the media person and said we’d like to have a chance to weigh in. That’s always ended well. I understand (the media) has a job to do. Part of that is on us to make sure you have things to cover.

“I always try to make myself available (to the media),� Baker noted, “because if you do that, it deposits some goodwill in the equity account that may help you later. I’ll be available as much as possible, and I’ll be responsive.�

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — This was the ultimate backhanded compliment, which is defined as a remark which seems to be praising someone but which could also be understood as a criticism.

It came from West Virginia guard Erik Stevenson, who has as much a way with a word as he does with a basketball. He's not only instant offense on the court, but an instant quote off the court. He's not only a go-to guy for points with his teammates, but he's a go-to guy to make a point for reporters.

After West Virginia finished off UAB last time, the subject of backup guard Seth Wilson came up, as he had just scored 10 points on 4 of 7 shooting, 2 of 4 from 3-point range.

A couple of the shots he made were, on a scale of 1 to 10, an 11, so Stevenson was asked about Wilson's performance.

"He's leading the league in shots that shouldn't go in," Stevenson said, which was meant as a compliment, a point made clear as Stevenson went on.

"He makes them."

The idea is, what may seem like a bad shot to one person, is a shot that is part of the game of another.

Perhaps the season's most defining "shot that shouldn't go in" but went in belonged to point guard Keedy Johnson earlier this year, as he got caught under the basket, a tiny flower among giant redwoods.

He had no one to pass to, so he leaned back at a far more severe angle than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, took the ball back with one hand while balancing on one leg and somehow threw the ball through the hoop.

"The clock was down to the last second," Keedy Johnson recalled. "I caught the ball, was off-balance. I slipped and as I went back it just went up and in."

This is not accidental stuff.

"In practice you work on weird shots like that," Johnson said.

"I credit a lot to our practices," Stevenson said. "When we go to our individual offense where the guards, wings and bigs all split up and do skill development, Coach (Larry) Harrison gives us a lot of freedom with the shots we can take as guards whether on balance or off balance.

"We work on those. We play a lot of 1-on-1 in practice, so when you're playing 1-on-1 you're not always going to be on balance when you're shooting. You have to make tough shots and contested shots and you pull those shots out with 5 on the shot clock, like Seth did in the first half."

The shot Stevenson was talking about by Wilson was one of those that you see him take and you shout, "No! No! No!"

And when it goes through you shout, "YES!"

"I thought it was way short, the little one-leg leaner, but it ended up being all net, which I was happy for him," Stevenson said.

"When you are in the gym by yourself you try things," Wilson explained. "You see what works."

Wilson isn't often talked about either in the traditional or social media, for this is such an interesting team with Emmitt Matthews, Stevenson, Tre Mitchell, Jimmy Bell and Joe Toussaint that there isn't time or space to stray far.

But as this season wears on, you will probably see more and more of him in his role as a torch lighter off the bench. That, in its way, makes Thursday's 6 p.m. game at the Coliseum key for him and guard Kobe Johnson as they figure to get a lot of floor time against a 5-5 Stony Brook team, sharpening up for Big 12 play.

"Seth definitely played well for us, especially offensively," Stevenson said. "We know he can shoot the ball and he's a solid defender. He's not going to do anything crazy or go out of his role. He knows what he's doing, just as Kobe does."

This isn't an accident. Wilson came to WVU a shy freshman. Didn't say a word.

His first interview with the media started off slowly, but by the time he left the podium, you could tell that he would grow with experience ... and he has, both at the podium and on the court.

Coach Bob Huggins cares far more about the court than at the podium and has been impressed by Wilson's approach.

"He's worked really hard and put a lot of time in," Huggins said. "He really wants to play and wants really to be an integral part of the program, which he is."

Huggins sees a well defined role for Wilson and Kobe Johnson as the Big 12 season unfolds.

"He and Kobe are the two guys that didn't play a whole lot last year that we really need to help us and we need them to have a strong core. We didn't get them in enough. They have to play more. The more they play, the better they will be.

While on the improve, Huggins expects Emmitt Matthews Jr. to miss the Stony Brook with an injury that is now being called a deep bone bruise to his leg. "The goal is to get Emmitt back practicing when we start back up after Christmas so he will be ready for Kansas State," Huggins said.