From Robert J. Hertzel Saturday morning, which was only hours before WVU played at — and beat — Georgetown:

He can play the game of basketball; rest assured on that. He just does it without calling any attention to himself.

We thought as this year started, with Da’Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks gone, that Kevin Jones would go into a phone booth and emerge as Superman, but that wasn’t to be. He tried to push the envelope early, but that only hurt his game.

He is what he is, 15 points and 7 rebounds.

Jones’ line on Saturday? Try 15 and 8. This is all valuable intel because Saturday you saw guys put on those T-shirts, if not physically, then mentally, that read “Do what you do.”

You’ve kind of seen this coming. Not Jones settling into his former reliable self, with the improvements that come with maturation under Huggins and in the Big East, but the rest of the team simply focusing on the things individuals do well to help the team.

The very best teams only control the things they can control and that’s accomplished with much more ease when players take responsibility for the things they can and are asked to do.

Saturday saw all of that as the Mountaineers played arguably their best game of the season and had very few out-of-line moments.

Oh, there were some and that’s when the game went sideways, but WVU found a way to steer its way back onto the road by, quite simply, guarding, rebounding and passing the ball.

The tricky part — tricky to anticipate, incorporate and now replicate — was the Mountaineers involved everyone and everything they do.

“We talked about who’s going to take ownership,” Huggins said. “I think I’m going to be back next year. A lot of them won’t. You better take ownership. I think we had a lot more of that going on.”

The Mountaineers responded with a uniquely united effort that, not coincidentally, helped them reach highs, handle lows and control the finish against a ranked team playing on its home court.

“I think if you take any individual away from our team in this game, it wouldn’t have been the same,” forward Kevin Jones said. “That’s because we had a collective team effort.”

Five of the eight who played had at least two assists. Deniz Kilicli had one in 12 minutes. Dan Jennings played only four minutes and was curiously deprived of an assist when he rebounded his own missed free throw and, rather than force up a shot, handed the ball to Casey Mitchell for a layup.

“We shared the ball better than we’ve shared the ball all year,” Huggins said. “We passed up an open shot to get a better one.”

That, as much as anything else, was indicative of what the Mountaineers were attempting to do and what they believed was the difference.