WVU likes to use a joke to explain why it’s so good at guarding the perimeter — it’s not good at guarding the interior.

 “I think maybe coming in teams feel like they can take us to the basket very easily,” the senior guard said. “That’s their scouting report. Don’t settle for jump shots.”

Well don’t look now, but teams are finding a little more resistance inside and the Mountaineers, perhaps improbably, are No. 5 in the Big East in blocked shots. There’s a twist: Teams give WVU a lot of chances because teams take a lot of chances. In the middle, though, stands a 6-foot-7 center who’s No. 5 himself in blocked shots.

Wellington Smith is on a bit of a roll.

But at 6-foot-7, Smith is making quite a name for himself as an elite shot blocker. When he skied high to swat away three shots in Wednesday night’s 82-63 victory over DePaul it gave him a streak of at least 15 consecutive games in which he had blocked a shot.

(Honestly, if you get my name at the top of a column, it’s probably making the blog.)

Has he been on a 15-game roll? Probably not and he wasn’t terrific Sunday against South Florida, but he’s been pretty good for a while, probably since the Providence game early last month. That’s all WVU really asks of Smith — “Be pretty good. Heck, be great, if you’d like, but, please, be out on the floor.”

Most meaningful, most impressive is the minutes he’s been playing because he’s been avoiding fouls. He’s WVU’s best post defender and that’s the first thing upcoming opponents are going to attack. If he shortens a three-man bench with early foul trouble, the postseason run could be a short one. If he’s confident and careful, he’s a big-time factor.

Smith has this ability to soar straight up like a Harrier or Osprey jet on takeoff. He often seems to come out of nowhere, rising above the fray to reject what seemed to be an open jump shot or layup by an opponent.

“You know about when they are going to shoot,” Smith said, when the subject of anticipating the shot was raised. “What you try to do is block shots off the ball. You get called for fouls when you try to block shots on the ball.”

A year ago, Smith would try to block everything, even when he was on the ball, and wound up being charged with a tremendous number of fouls, cutting down on his minutes on the floor. He committed 108 last year and fouled out of six games. This year, with just one game in the regular season remaining, has only 88 fouls and has fouled out of only two games.