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MORGANTOWN -- One thing Darian DeVries can't say is that his first season as West Virginia's men's basketball hasn't been a wild ride and that the judgment on just what kind of year it's been remains in the balance.
A recent "bracketology" study on CBS Sports listed the Mountaineers as one of the final four teams to make it into the tournament.
In other words, they are on the bubble despite the many upset victories during the season and the lower expectations surrounding a team with an entirely new roster and a new coach that would suffer a devastating injury to one of its top players eight games in.
Is this an NCAA Tournament team or not?
And, more importantly, before you can answer that question you might want to offer up a definition of what makes an NCAA Tournament team. That question was posed to DeVries on Tuesday as the team was preparing for Cincinnati.
DeVries hesitated as the question was posed to him.
"I don't know," he began, rightfully so because there really is no definition and that's why teams "on the bubble" always have an argument for their inclusion while the committee might see it quite differently.
"For us, as you watch other teams as coaches, you can go 'That's a really good team. That's a tournament team.' I think we have a tournament team, but we have to finish this season off with some wins. We have the components and makeup of a team that belongs in the NCAA Tournament, but I guess we still have to do our part and win some games."
What do you judge when trying to pick a tournament team?
"Offensively, defensively, chemistry, whatever it is, every team in contention has something it hangs its hat on. I feel like we have enough components there that we can make the NCAA Tournament and go win some games," DeVries said.
With college football recently expanding its championship tournament because four teams certainly weren't enough to accommodate the Big 12 and SEC, let alone other conferences. They went to 12 teams and there's talk that the big two conferences are pushing to go to 14 or 16 teams.
In college basketball, there are 68 teams chosen to the tournament now, which sounds like a whole lot, but there are 331 teams who play the sport at the top level and every year there are teams left out that make a strong case to get in, forcing the conversation that the tournament should expand further.
As DeVries notes, WVU is a case in point.
Right now, it appears that it will take 19 wins to clinch a spot. WVU currently has 15 wins, and 10 losses and has dropped six of its last eight games.
Six regular season games remain, in order they are at home Wednesday night against Cincinnati, then at No. 12 Texas Tech; return home and play TCU, go on a road trip to BYU and Utah, and then finish up at home against UCF.
A 3-3 run through those games would give them 18. Enough? Would they need to win a couple of games in the Big 12 Tournament?
WVU's argument is quite complicated and doesn't just come down to wins and losses.
This is a team that has beaten the No. 2, No. 3, No. 7 and No. 24 teams in the country. Three Top 10 teams have to stand for something.
But they beat No. 3 Gonzaga and No. 24 Arizona when Tucker DeVries, one of their two best players, was playing. DeVries had 16 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists against Gonzaga and 24 points with 6 rebounds and 6 assists against Arizona.
Needless to say, they are not as strong a team without him and the committee will look at that.
The committee also tends to have a "what have you done for me lately" approach and, as noted, WVU has lost 6 of its last 8 games and a 3-3 finish would mean it lost 9 or its last 14 games.
Should they lose to TCU it would mean the Horned Frogs swept the season series from them, which would be a large blot upon their record, while if they can conjure enough to upset Texas Tech on its court it would probably be enough to carry them into the NCAA Tournament even with 18 wins.
DeVries has been through the bubble machine before at Drake of the Missouri Valley Conference, once making it into the field as conference champion and he admits the pressure is different there than it is at a Power 4 school where you can lose more games but where the competition level is higher.
"You have to adjust a little but when I was at Drake or Creighton, the mindset was still the next game. The losses, they hang with you a little longer, but you can't let it hang on too long," DeVries said.
His remedy is to after a game he sits and watches the game they had just played, then moves on to the next opponent. By the next morning, he has a game plan ready and turns his vision forward., fully aware there is nothing he can do about it 24 hours later if the last game was a defeat.
In a way, being in a Power 4 conference is easier on the attitude because you can lose more games and still elbow your way into the NCAAs. At a school like Drake, you need to have 20 wins almost as you enter February because the Missouri Valley Conference is probably only going to get one bid as an at-large team.
"They are two different types of pressure. At Drake, we understood you can't drop a couple of games, even though it is conference play. Conferences are all hard. If you play 30-some games in any league, you are going to have some bad nights.
"Here, we're in a league that has some really good teams and there are nights when you are not going to have it. You can survive those nights, but you still have to go win some games there."