With just six games remaining in the regular season, the West Virginia State men's basketball team finds itself in a situation where every game feels like a postseason game.
Entering into the last few weeks, the Yellow Jackets still have work to do to clinch a spot in the upcoming Mountain East Conference tournament. With the tournament format changing this year from having first-round games on campus to bringing the top 10 teams of the 12-team league to the Charleston Civic Center, it has brought a sense of urgency to a State team currently sitting in last place in the conference.
"Yesterday we kind of broke it down to them about where we're at," West Virginia State coach Bryan Poore said. "Every night out now is like a tournament game for us. In order for us to make the tournament, we have to win at least two or three of these last six. It's do-or-die now, this is a must-win game."
The Yellow Jackets (6-16, 3-13 MEC) will kick off this crucial run at 7:30 p.m. Thursday against Glenville State (8-12, 5-11, No. 9 in the conference). For WVSU, it will be a return home after four consecutive losses on the road.
West Virginia State has been a better team when it plays at home, going 4-5 at the Walker Convocation Center.
"It's going to be great to be back home and hopefully the crowd will help give us some energy," Poore said. "You're always a little more comfortable at home, you shoot it better. We're excited to be able to be there for five of these last six."
Glenville State has lost six games in a row but will present a unique challenge for West Virginia State with the personnel it will have on the floor.
The Pioneers have a handful of talented playmakers, led by Brett Morris, who averages 19.2 points, and several forwards who can stretch the floor and will be tough matchups for WVSU's big men.
"They've got a lot of guys that can make shots and they do a really good job with their ball-screen stuff they do," Poore said. "Their posts can be a little bit of a mismatch problem at times. Our guys are going to have to be able to guard them off the dribble and at the 3-point line."
While West Virginia State returns home trying to rebound, Charleston's men's team hits the road looking to stay hot.
The Golden Eagles (13-9, 7-9) have won three in a row and have rediscovered the momentum they had lost in the middle of the season. The next step will come as they head to Buckhannon to square off at 7:30 p.m. Thursday against West Virginia Wesleyan (11-11, 8-8), a team that beat them at home a few weeks ago in a thrilling overtime contest.
"We had lost a little bit of our confidence there for a while - and that's always something that can happen when you have 12 new players and you start losing a few games in a row," UC coach Dwaine Osborne said. "Once we started playing better against West Liberty and then turned around and beat Wheeling Jesuit, we saw that we can compete with anyone again.
"Then we started gaining that confidence back and started to build on it. Hopefully we can keep that going now."
With that confidence has also come a fair amount of consistency for the Golden Eagles. In the last three games, UC has held opponents to 37.3 percent shooting from the field and allowed fewer than 70 points in back-to-back conference games for the first time since the end of last season.
"Coach talked all the time about just needing a couple of good wins to get things flowing again, and I think we're seeing that now," senior forward Justin Coleman said. "We still have some things to work on and we're not there yet, but we just have to keep trying to do that and improve but keep winning along the way."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.