The trip back from Charleston and the Capital Classic was not particularly enjoyable for WVU following the loss to Marshall, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t productive.

“Each person said what they thought they needed to do to help this team out and we told each other we were going to hold each other accountable for the things we said we were going to do,” said forward Cam Thoroughman.

For one Sunday in the Coliseum, the result of the conversation was clear. The Mountaineers played together on defense, guarded the 3-point line and were better in their matchup zone. They rebounded and created second and third chances. They took care of the ball and shared it on offense. They encountered what was almost an expected lull and escaped it.

They defeated South Florida, 56-46.

On the day that saw Casey Mitchell leave his comfort zone and get 14 rebounds, when the Mountaineers had a season-low six turnovers — one in the second half — and gave USF zero points off turnovers, when Dan Jennings walked away from the team, Bob Huggins had a message.

“I told them before the game, if you don’t love this, it’s too hard. I mean, if you don’t love basketball, if you don’t love competing, if you don’t really love it … well, you need to play the fiddle or something. I don’t know what the hell you do, but do something else because this is too hard,” Huggins said.

No one in the room had a fiddle and they weren’t going to count Deniz Kilicli’s guitar.

“Guys that don’t want to have teammates have to go play golf and tennis,” Huggins said. “There’s some tennis guys who could never have stayed on a team but they were very successful on their own. It’s kind of what it is. When you are on a team, you have responsibilities to other people.”