West Virginia point guard Jordan Harrison is averaging 12.3 points and 4.4 assists per game heading into Big 12 play. (Photo by Benjamin Powell/The Dominion Post)

MORGANTOWN — If it’s possible for a basketball team to have come up against an entire season’s worth of experiences before conference play begins, West Virginia just may be that team.

It won a game with just five players available in the second half. It lost a shootout in The Bahamas and for the first time since 2007, the Mountaineers (10-2) played five games against opponents from a Power Conference in their nonconference schedule.

“We’ve gone through the gambit,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said. “It’s been good to see this team and how it responds to some of those emotions. We’ve had some highs, obviously some lows.”

The emotions have been plenty, beginning with beating then-No. 15 Duke with just five players in the second half after six players had been ejected from the game just prior to halftime.

In the Bahamas, WVU held an eight-point lead with less than four minutes to go, yet lost an 83-80 bout against Ohio State.

WVU had their way with both Georgia Tech at home and Texas A&M on the road and then was on the other side of that story in a 22-point loss against Villanova.

“We’ve gotten a lot out of it, for sure,” Kellogg said. “If you had told me we’d be 10-2 before, I could maybe see that. Now, now how it happened. Nobody saw Duke happening how that happened and the emotion that came from that. We had the opposite emotion in the loss to Ohio State. Then there was the complete dud against Villanova.”

“It was definitely a challenging nonconference (schedule),” added WVU forward Carter McCray. “I think it’s really prepared us.”

All of it is now in the rear-view mirror, as WVU prepares for Big 12 play at 2 p.m. Sunday, when the Mountaineers host Houston (6-5), which is under first-year head coach Matthew Mitchell.

The next 18 games present their own challenge, basically a three-month gauntlet that will feature four games against teams currently ranked in the AP Top 25 and 11 games against teams ranked inside the top 70 of the NCAA’s NET rankings.

“When we lost those games in the nonconference, we learned a lot about us,” WVU forward Celia Riviere said. “We learned about what we can do better to be ready for the Big 12. We just worked through it and we’ll see about the Big 12 now.”

There will also be individual matchups against potential All-Americans such as Iowa State center Audi Crooks, TCU guard Olivia Miles and Baylor guard Taliah Scott.

Texas Tech is undefeated heading into Big 12 play, setting up what could be an amazing one-year reversal of fortunes after finishing 4-14 in conference play last season. Kansas, with star guard S’Mya Nichols (19.3 ppg.), is making a major push to contend in the Big 12.

And then there are the Mountaineers, who have been in the Big 12 discussion heading into the final weeks of the regular season over Kellogg’s first two seasons. WVU ultimately finished tied for fourth in both of those seasons.

WVU is currently ranked No. 25 in the NET. The Mountaineers pushed their way into the AP Top 25 earlier this season, only to fall back out following the loss against Villanova.

Is there room for these Mountaineers to take their experiences from the nonconference season and make another push to the top of the Big 12 standings?

“How do we break through and win the league or finish in the top three if we don’t want to be fourth or fifth?” Kellogg asked himself. “We have to continue to defend at a high rate and figure out offensively how to get a little better. We’ve been elite defensively our first two years, but haven’t quite been as good offensively as we needed to. The analytics say we’re the 12th-best defensive team and the 24th-best offense. We’re still trending the right way, but our offense isn’t quite where our offense is.”