On Selection Sunday, West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins was asked about his team's seeding -- the Mountaineers (23-11) earned the sixth spot in the Midwest Regional and will play 11th-seeded Dayton (26-7) at approximately 3 p.m. Friday in Minneapolis.

Huggins said, simply, "We thought we'd be a five or a six."

He could have changed "thought" to "hoped." And he could have said "six or seven" seed, because the last three times the Mountaineers have received a six or seven, they have caused quite a maddening -- in a good way -- run through March.

Last year, West Virginia seeded seventh in the West and stormed through Arizona and Duke before losing against Xavier in the Sweet 16.

In 2006, the Mountaineers were seeded sixth and produced similar results. They played in the Atlanta Regional and got past Southern Illinois in a first-round game, and Northwestern State two days later. The Mountaineers looked to be heading to overtime against Texas when Kevin Pittsnogle hit a 3-pointer with five seconds remaining to tie it, but West Virginia lost at the buzzer when Kenton Paulino drilled a 3-pointer, making it 74-71.

In 2005, West Virginia went on a deep run after being seeded seventh in the West Regional. West Virginia beat Creighton in the opener, slipped past Wake Forest in a 111-105 double-overtime game, then beat Texas Tech to advance to the Elite Eight before being eliminated, in overtime, by Louisville.

Coincidentally, Huggins harked back to a former Louisville coach when asked about what it takes to make a deep run in the tournament. And it isn't always those No. 1 seeds, or the teams with the most talent.

"Denny Crum said it best when he said, 'To win this, you have to be lucky. You can't be unlucky.' " Huggins said. "Some of the people who have won and some of the games that they played, they were really lucky. [When I was coaching at Cincinnati], we had injuries. You can't get injured. We had two guys get injured in the tournament and one guy get injured in the game before the tournament. You just can't do that. I think luck has something to do with it. I think pairings have something to do with it; style of play and who you play all have something to do with it. I kind of like where we are."

The Mountaineers are a win away from getting the winner of Kansas and North Dakota State, with the bottom half of the bracket featuring Boston College, Southern California, Michigan State and Robert Morris.

For Huggins, it isn't so much where a potential opponent is ranked, or how that team has been playing coming into the tournament, but rather how his players individually match up against the opponent's.

"I think a lot of it is who you get paired up with, whether you have a good matchup or not, and we're certainly one of those teams," he said.

"We play well against a certain type of team and not quite as well against others, but I like where we are right now."

And recent history shows that the sixth or seventh seed isn't all that bad a place to be if you are West Virginia.

Game: No. 6 seed West Virginia (23-11) vs. No. 11 Dayton (26-7) in a Midwest Region first-round game, approx. 3 p.m..

Where: Minneapolis.

Don't fret, West Virginia fans. Just because the Mountaineers are tipping off Friday at about the same time as Pitt (3 p.m.) doesn't mean you won't be able to watch your team. KDKA will show the Pitt game, but also will show the West Virginia-Dayton game on its sister station, The CW.