{"id":693526,"date":"2026-04-02T08:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693526\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T08:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:47:19","slug":"wvu-seniors-face-off-with-stanfords-freshman-star-in-crown-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693526\/","title":{"rendered":"WVU seniors face off with Stanford’s freshman star in Crown opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior-dominated West Virginia<\/a> and freshman-led Stanford<\/a> go head-to-head Thursday night when the College Basketball Crown Tournament continues in Las Vegas with its second day of quarterfinal matchups.<\/p>\n

The second-year event pitting teams from the Southeastern Conference, Big 12, Big Ten and Big East will continue Saturday in Las Vegas with the semifinals, where the West Virginia-Stanford survivor will meet the winner of the Thursday second quarterfinal between Rutgers and Creighton.<\/p>\n

The nationally televised finals are set for Sunday afternoon, with the winner guaranteed $300,000 in name, image and likeness money.<\/p>\n

When last seen on March 11, West Virginia (18-14) was alternating losses and wins over its final five games, capped by a 68-48 drubbing at the hands of BYU in the Mountaineers’ opening game of the Big 12 Conference tournament.<\/p>\n

Mountaineers coach Ross Hodge labeled the long layoff an “enjoyable experience,” especially for his five key seniors — Honor Huff, Brenen Lorient, Treysen Eaglestaff, Chance Moore and Jasper Floyd — who might otherwise have already gone their separate ways in pursuing future basketball dreams.<\/p>\n

“Anytime you get to continue to play, it’s hard to not take advantage of those opportunities,” Hodge said this week. “When you have a group that legitimately wants to keep playing and gets opportunities to be together, I’ve always been of the mindset that you need to honor that and have an appreciation level.”<\/p>\n

Stanford (20-12) had a four-game winning streak snapped in its most recent outing, a 64-63 loss to Pittsburgh in the opening round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament on March 10.<\/p>\n

Accepting a bid to the Crown tournament allows Stanford fans at least one more chance to see prized freshman Ebuka Okorie, an All-ACC first-team selection who had averaged 27.3 points over the final eight games of the conference regular season before he was limited to just 14 points by Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Stanford coach Kyle Smith realizes his star will have options in the offseason.<\/p>\n

“I’m prayerful,” Smith said this week. “I do think it’s going to be us or the NBA, and I support whatever Ebuka chooses.”<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior-dominated West Virginia and freshman-led Stanford go head-to-head Thursday night when the College Basketball Crown Tournament continues in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,12772,18378],"class_list":{"0":"post-693526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-stanford-cardinal","14":"tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334250430173658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}