ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The West Virginia women's basketball team is the No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament Spokane Regional and will play No. 12 seed New Mexico today at The Pit in Albuquerque, the Lobos' home court.

As such, the Mountaineers are one of only two teams in the tournament who play their first-round game on the home court of a lower seed.

This fact hasn't been lost on West Virginia coach Mike Carey.

Yesterday, during a news conference at the facility, he was very careful when asked about the situation.

"I don't think I can say what my thoughts are here," Carey said, a response that drew some laughter. "But it is what it is.

"The way I see it, New Mexico deserves to host the tournament because they get great crowds here, they've had great success here and they have been to the NCAA a couple of years in a row. I don't blame New Mexico, I'd put a bid in every year ... if I had the success that they have had [drawing crowds].

Along with a rowdy hostile crowd -- organizers expect more than 12,000 fans -- the Mountaineers will also have to deal with the time change (Albuquerque is in the Mountain time zone) as well as the thin air because the city is about a mile above sea level.

Carey said all of those things are interesting side notes, but in his mind they are irrelevant once the game begins.

"We've played in front of large crowds before, so I don't think our players are going to come out in awe of a large crowd and a lot of people against them," Carey said. "We need to come out and play hard and take control of the game early and get the fans sitting on their hands a little bit.

"There have been questions about the air -- we haven't talked about any of that and we are not going to make excuses.

"If we get beat it will be because New Mexico beat us."

He wasn't kidding

The Mountaineers allowed 19 offensive rebounds and were outrebounded by 13 in their last game, a 67-60 loss to Louisville in the Big East Tournament. After that game, Carey vowed he'd spend the week leading up to the NCAA tournament working with his team on rebounding.

True to his word, he made rebounding a point of emphasis, going so far as putting a bubble on top of both baskets during certain drills to ensure there would be a lot of rebounds.

"To me, it is really all about heart and energy at this point," Carey said.

"And we've challenged our girls over the last week that it comes down to playing with some heart.

"We put a bubble up on our rim so nobody could make a shot and we could work on boxing out. So I don't even know if we'll be able to make shot [in the game] because we haven't made a shot all week because of the bubbles."