I saw in KUSports preview of tonight's game that WVU has been winning at home by an average 36 point margin. Sound unbelievable to me, so I took a look.
Sure enough, here's who they've hosted:
N. Kentucky: W 107-61, 46 pt margin
Stetson: W 103-62, 41 pt margin
Bethune-Cookman: W 97-44, 53 pt margin
Kennesaw State: W 87-54, 33 pt margin
Virginia: L 70-54, -16 pt margin
Lousiana Monroe: W 100-58, 42 pt margin
E Kentucky: W 84-59, 25 pt margin
OSU: W 77-60, 17 pt margin
A couple things jump out immediately, and the most obvious (aside from leading the race to be Kentucky State Champs) is the overall low quality of their opposition. With the exception of Virginia (who beat them) they haven't played another ranked team. Our one opponent in common was SDSU, and the scores were very similar. Looking at their SOS according to Sagarin, that translates to a 165 out of 351 teams, compared to KU's #10 SOS rating. In fact, KU is 2-1 vs. top 10 teams, and 5-1 vs. the top 50. WVU is 0-1 vs. the top 10 and 1-1 vs the top 50.
In other words, KU has played 6 top 50 teams to WVU's 2.
This brings in to question how WVU will respond when they're really tested. In terms of close games, they played 2 OT's in their road win at KSU (who is turning out to be a bit of a dud this year), but everything else has been a 10+ point margin.
Bottom line, this still sets up to be a big game and it will likely be a tough road trip. We don't really know how WVU will perform against us since they haven't really played anyone of note yet (except for their 16 point home loss to Virginia. While I still expect that this will be a tough game, it's also entirely possible that this game could expose WVU as pretender instead of a contender.
