I’m talking about Saturday night, but am I referring to the first half or the second?

Hard to say. Let’s get into both.

For starters, the defense that seemed to be maybe an anomaly earlier probably isn’t. Credit Notre Dame for shooting so well — I can’t remember witnessing anything like that except maybe the 2005 Elite Eight game against Louisville — but ask Joe Mazzulla how he feels about that.

“Not to take credit from them, but they had I don’t know how many transition baskets,” Mazzulla said. “And it’s not like the rest of their shots were contested. We were that bad.”

So on the road, WVU plays dreadful defense against a red-hot offense. To complicate matters, two players had a real, real hard time guarding people and defending picks and screens. The Irish used a lot of screens and picks.

WVU found itself in a deficit — 25-4 at one point! — and Notre Dame found itself to be quite comfortable in a 2-3 zone. Bad combo for WVU, which saw the score and the zone and decided 3-pointers were the way to go. The players took and missed a lot.

The Mountaineers were 3-for-18 from 3-point range and just 2-for-3 at the foul line as they struggled against Notre Dame’s 2-3 zone.

“It wasn’t even a great zone,” Butler said. “Guys weren’t cutting hard to get the ball in the middle. It was slow and sluggish. Nobody had any energy. I didn’t see any effort at all from anybody.”

Well, trouble against a zone — with Syracuse coming to town Saturday — seems to be a trend for WVU, which doesn’t have a lot of players who can drive to the basket or position themselves inside to get scores or foul shots. Combine bad defense, bad offense and a few bad efforts and you have a 20-point halftime deficit.

But what about the second half? WVU blistered the zone and Notre Dame had to ditch it and just didn’t match up very well one-on-one with WVU’s lineup. The shooting improved, the drives appeared and the lead dwindled. Oh, and that awful defense? Disappeared.

Mazzulla had a lot to do with that.

“He was probably the major difference,” Huggins said.

He pressured the ball and made the Irish hurry after they took their time and got what they wanted in the first half. He also drove a lot and either scored or kicked out to shooters. The combination that had him at point guard and Truck at 2-guard was maybe the bet the backcourt has looked this season.

And as often happens in a big rally, WVU got a big boost from unexpected sources. Wellington Smith awoke, which happens every now and then, but Dalton Pepper and Dan Jennings helped out a lot. Pepper, in particular, looked like he belonged out there with his shooting, his driving, his passing and even his defense, which had been a weakness.

Somehow, Huggins cobbled together a few effective lineups that always featured Butler and Kevin Jones and managed to incorporate two freshmen and two point guards, one that was playing with one arm.

“We just took out a couple players,” Huggins said. “We were supposed to be doing that the whole game.”

That was a subtle-but-not-so-subtle reference to Devin Ebanks, whose absence was noticeable at first and then easy to ignore as the second half progressed. Asked if Ebanks was OK, Huggins replied, “You’d have to ask him.” He wasn’t sick — I asked; actually Mazzulla wasn’t feeling well at all — but instead just had a really bad night, which happens, but which can’t hold back the Mountaineers.

“We wanted him out there, but it’s the fact everyone can’t be out there at the same time,” said forward Da’Sean Butler, who had 13 points on 4-for-20 shooting.

“Some people are going to play when some people can’t do certain things. We can’t depend on people so much because when they’re not in the game it’s a crutch. We don’t need crutches. We need people to go out there and compete and play hard. That’s what everyone needs to do.”