West Virginia basketball faces tough upcoming schedule

Winners of two in a row, the West Virginia Mountaineers are set to hit a tough three-game stretch of their schedule that figures to both test them now and give them the benefit of good experience down the road, according to Derek Redd of the Charleston Daily Mail.

The Mountaineers begin by hosting the undefeated Virginia Tech Hokies on Saturday afternoon, then hit the road to take on the Duquesne Dukes -- a team that only lost to West Virginia by three in 2010 -- Tuesday, followed by a date with the No. 3 Michigan Wolverines in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the first-ever Brooklyn Hoops Winter Hoops Festival on Dec. 15.

Matchups against Virginia Tech and Michigan will be a challenge for a young Mountaineers team. But West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins believes throwing his team into the fire early on will hopefully benefit it down the road in the form of battle-testing.

Here's Huggins, from the report:

"That's the theory we're hangin' on to. I do think sometimes when you don't play anybody ... what are you supposed to do, come out after beating VMI the way we beat VMI and yell and scream about how we didn't do certain things right? I think it does fall on deaf ears. That's the advantage of playing people."