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Ray Thompson/Associated Press

Stock Advice: Buy a little, but be wary of the curse of the best conference.

We often talk about how important it is for a team to be "battle tested" by March. The theory is that it's almost impossible to survive six must-win games of increasing difficulty if you've spent the bulk of your season fattening up on cupcakes.

What we don't talk about nearly enough is the opposite extreme. Heck, I don't know that anyone has ever pointed this out, but keep it in mind when filling out your bracket in two months: In the last 12 seasons, the highest-rated conference on KenPom.com has sent a combined total of 81 teams to the NCAA tournament. Only four—2008 UCLA, 2012 Ohio State, 2013 Michigan, 2016 Oklahoma—reached the Final Four, and none of them won the title.

Tough to say what causes this conference-wide collapse in March. Maybe it's fatigue from facing two brutal opponents per week for nine weeks. Maybe it's an acquired lack of concern about winning every game, since you can lose seven conference games and still earn a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. Perhaps it's just a coincidence from a tournament in which 94 percent of teams don't reach the Final Four. Either way, it's something to consider with West Virginia and the rest of the Big 12, which is clearly the best top-to-bottom conference in the nation.

Right now, the Mountaineers look great. They have won 14 consecutive games, including quality victories over Virginia and Oklahoma. Per usual, they are forcing turnovers at just about the highest rate in the nation and are crashing the offensive glass like their lives depend upon it. Better yet, they're just one week away from getting Esa Ahmad (11.3 PPG, 4.3 RPG last year) back from a 17-game suspension. That should be quite the boost for what is already one of the top teams in the country.

However, in addition to the aforementioned overall concern about the Big 12 this March, we haven't liked what we've see from West Virginia away from home.

Jevon Carter and Co. have played seven games outside of Morgantown. They won only one of those games—a blowout of UCF—by more than a double-digit margin. The Mountaineers only beat Marist by six points on a neutral court, needed a frantic comeback to beat Missouri three nights later and never really pulled away from a Pittsburgh team that hasn't beaten anyone good all season. Worst of all, they got destroyed by a short-handed Texas A&M in the season opener in Germany.

The Mountaineers play at Texas Tech and at TCU in the next two weeks and have huge road games against Oklahoma and Kansas in February. Perhaps after those games, we'll feel a little better about Press Virginia's chances to win a title.