Mississippi to challenge WVU tonight

MORGANTOWN - After surviving an 80-78 win over an unranked Cleveland State five on Saturday, No. 6 West Virginia (8-0) heads back into the battle for national recognition tonight when No. 15 Mississippi (10-1) visits the Coliseum.

Tipoff is slated for 7:30 p.m. with the game being televised nationally by ESPN2.

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is concerned about his team's lackluster play of late.

"I'm embarrassed because I've taken a lot of pride in that my kids really cared," Huggins told MSNsportNET.com's John Antonik following the victory over the Vikings. "My kids have been hard-playing guys. We haven't always been good, we didn't make shots sometimes, but we always played hard. This team hasn't played hard."

If that trend continues tonight, WVU's unbeaten mark and No. 6 ranking could be in serious jeopardy.

The Rebels are coming off of a 108-64 demolition of Centenary on Saturday. Mississippi has won six games in a row and its only loss came against a No. 8 Villanova squad (79-67) on Nov. 22.

Ole Miss is led in scoring by 5-foot-10 guard Chris Warren (18.3 ppg) and in rebounding by 6-foot-7 forward Murphy Holloway (7.1 rpg). Also averaging double figures for head coach Andy Kennedy's team are Holloway (11.8 ppg), sophomore guard Tirrico White (16.6) and junior guard Eniel Polynice (10.0).

Rounding out the Vikings' expected starting five will be 6-foot-8 freshman forward Reginald Buckner, who is chipping in 4.9 points and 5.2 rebounds per contest during his first season with the Rebels.

WVU will counter with its normal starting five of 6-foot-7 senior Da'Sean Butler, who hit a driving layin with 1.2 seconds to beat Cleveland State, and 6-foot-2 Darryl 'Truck' Bryant at the guards and 6-foot-7 senior Wellington Smith, 6-foot-7 junior John Flowers and 6-foot-8 sophomore Kevin Jones at the forwards.

Butler leads the team in scoring (16.9 ppg) and is second in rebounding (6.0 rpg) while Jones, who is coming off back-to-back career scoring efforts, chips in 14.5 points and a team-leading 7.3 rebounds per contest.

Bryant, who averages 4.3 assists per game, is the only other Mountaineer starter in double figures at 10.6 points per game. Sophomore Devin Ebanks, who is averaging 10.8 points and six rebounds per contest, will still be the old gold and blue's first player off of the bench.

Other top reserves include junior Casey Mitchell (8.3 ppg), who has missed the last two games with a sore knee, freshmen Dalton Pepper (4.6) and Dan Jennings (3.3) and junior Jonnie West (3.4).

Tonight will mark the second meeting between the two schools. WVU handed the Rebels a 80-78 setback a year ago. However, Ole Miss head coach Kennedy has a win over the Mountaineers as the interim coach at the University of Cincinnati a 78-75 win in Cincinnati in 2005-06. Kennedy was an assistant under Huggins with the Bearcats.

West Virginia enters Big East play beginning on Saturday when the Mountaineers travel to Seton Hall for a 3:30 p.m. encounter with the Pirates (8-1), who suffered their first loss of the season against Temple (71-65) on Saturday.

The Mountaineers return to Morgantown to take on Marquette at 7 p.m. on Dec. 29. The game will be televised on the Big East Network.