Why, that’d be WVU’s basketball team, which used Saturday’s upset at previously unbeaten Ohio State to pole vault in the RPI (not quite there in the coaches’ poll).

The Mountaineers squandered chances to get name wins against Kentucky and Davidson, but this was a signature win on another team’s floor. It was what WVU was –defensive-minded, determined rebounding, good-enough at scoring and alarmingly adept at handling adversity.

The Mountaineers were getting bullied inside and couldn’t make shots. Then they figured out a way to stop entry passes on defense and then spread the floor and score rather easily on offense. They missed 16 of 20 3-point attempts and nearly shot 50 percent.  

Oh, and they used eight players. Eight! And somehow that team leads at the half and runs away from a really good team in the second half … while the best scorer sits out for 10 minutes with foul trouble? 

I walked by the TV, saw the score, immediately thought, ‘Man, I wish they could have played that game even strength,’ and then realized WVU was up by something like 18 points. Then Wellington Smith tossed in a hook shot from about 12 feet away and I suffered a rug burn on my jaw.  

It’s best put this way. In March, it’ll look like a great win, but look closer and it’s even better.

There were many ways to dissect WVU’s triumph, its most convincing in history over a top 15-ranked team. The Mountaineers did it with rebounding, with gritty man defense, with offensive efficiency (a season-low seven turnovers).

They rolled with what Huggins called “spreading them, a point of emphasis … and then less structure” against Ohio State’s 1-2-2 matchup zone.

What did Matta see?

“A lot of things, but the biggest thing was we never took a stand out there,” said Matta, who was 2-of-3 over Huggins in Cincinnati’s Crosstown Shootout rivalry. “We never kind of bit our lip and said we’re going to do this or that.

“At some point in every game there comes a point where you need to take a stand and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to take this or that away.’ But they really had their way with us … We weren’t very good. West Virginia had a lot to do with it.”