MORGANTOWN — After losing to highly ranked TCU at home by one point, West Virginia women’s basketball had a long time before getting back in the win column against a ranked team, improving its resume for an NCAA Tournament bid. WVU’s next-ranked team is just one game away when it hosts No. 14 Baylor at the start of February.

Since that loss to the Horned Frogs, WVU has won three straight games over Cincinnati, Arizona State and BYU. It wasn’t easy. The Mountaineers needed comeback wins over Arizona State and BYU to keep the streak alive, and two wins were on the road. Now, the 22nd-ranked team in the country is 17-4 on the season and 7-2 in the Big 12.

The stretch of “win the games you’re supposed to win” has just one final hurdle before the matchup with the Bears. WVU takes its perfect 6-0 road record just up the road to face Utah at 9 p.m. tonight.

The Utes won’t be the biggest challenge to cap off the stretch. Utah is 14-6 on the year and 5-3 in the conference. But, the Utes have some impressive wins and have faced a couple of ranked opponents. Utah did what WVU couldn’t do and upset TCU 87-77 in overtime. The Utes won with how they have won all season — spreading the ball around.

Utah’s guard Lani White usually leads the team in scoring. White averages 14.3 points per game and had 25 in the upset win. Forward Reese Ross helps out, too, and averages 9.8 points per game. She also leads the team in rebounding, grabbing eight boards per game, which is fourth in the conference.

Dominating the glass is one of Utah’s strengths. With Ross’ help, the Utes average over 40 rebounds per game and are fourth in the Big 12 in that department.

The Mountaineers aren’t the best rebounding team. They were outrebounded in the loss to Texas Tech. WVU is fourth-to-last in the conference.

WVU is exiting a matchup with BYU, though, who is one of the better rebounding teams in the league, and head coach Mark Kellogg’s squad actually outrebounded the Cougars.

“We are a much better rebounding team this year than we have been in my previous two years,” Kellogg said. “That was something that we wanted to be.”

Kellogg and various players have focused on rebounding this season. Guard Sydney Shaw has brought it up a couple of times postgame and talked about how the coaches have been on her to make the extra effort and find the ball after a shot. To back up Kellogg’s statement, WVU is averaging two more than last year. Not a massive improvement, but even those two extra go a long way.

Forward Kierra Wheeler has helped a lot on the glass for WVU, and she’s strung together a couple of big games after the TCU loss.

Wheeler led in scoring against Cincinnati and Arizona State. WVU might lean on her again against Utah, since the Utes are one of the better defensive teams on the perimeter.

But, it’ll be another team effort, with leading scorer Gia Cooke, needing to contribute, who’s had better performances on the road, and the bench players, who came up big in the comeback win over BYU.

WVU is just one win away from leaving the Beehive State perfect and heading into Baylor with a four-game win streak. But, Utah’s another one of those games where you can’t look past, or else it won’t be a happy plane ride back to Morgantown.

“It’s brutal,” Kellogg said. “It’s a gauntlet. You get one, and you just realize what’s coming behind it. We play six of our nine this month on the road. Our two five-day road trips are in this month, too. We play Utah again on Tuesday. It’s a relentless gauntlet that is always my term. We’re in the middle of it again, but that’s what we signed up for. You gotta love it.”