No WiFi in the arena. Roughly three power outlets for all of press row. A copy machine that breaks in the postgame. Those are things that bother the media, which I understand and accept don’t matter much in the big picture.

Yet throughout the first half there were three distinctly different game clocks and scoreboards and the buzzer didn’t work and had to be replaced by an air horn, which was just about spent by halftime. The game feed went in and out, or just out, according to people who emailed and tweeted me. It was fixed by halftime, but it was bad form. 

The game was not competitive, so much so that WVU was able to press and really bother Morehead State and Bob Huggins was able to tinker throughout most of the game and put Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant back in when things got too sloppy. The announced crowd of 10,122 was the smallest to see a Huggins team play. Even the officials seemed disinterested. Karl Hess looked like a guy who wasn’t in Maui, or even Kansas City, and it sure seemed like he just refused to get out of the way on a few occasions, including one when a Morehead State player barreled into Hess and fell out of bounds … and was given possession when play resumed right next to a smirking Huggins

And then there was the political basketball played before the game because of the enormous Friends of Coal logo on the brand new floor, the one that stretched from the top of one 3-point arch to the other. Plainly stated, it bothered a lot of people. Credit Chesapeake Energy, which has a quarter-million dollar sponsarship with the Capital Classic for staying above the fray.

And Bob Huggins wants to play more games in Charleston? Why, so he can upgrade to a blactop court with a chain net?

There was something to be taken from the game, though — and not Deniz Kilicli’s mesmerizing no-look hook pass to a cutting Aaron Brown, who never cut and was mesmerizingly taken out of the game. Kilicli referred to himself as “Tragic Johnson” for that one.

What mattered most to me was Huggins found a way to get players to go fast and hard by having them pick up Morehead State full court early and often in the game. It worked wonderfully. Not only did the Mountaineers force 23 turnovers and turn them into 23 points — both season-highs — but WVU had its best pace of the  season on both ends of the Friends of Coal logo court.

WVU had pretty good transition and very good energy and was then able to negotiate Morehead State’s press. Good signs for the still-young team.

“We want to do that,” WVU Coach Bob Huggins said. “It’s what I said before, but we’d do it and guys would go by us and have it in the lane. That’s not good for us. We’d get spread out and wouldn’t do a very good job containing the ball.

“We’re getting better at guarding the ball. We have a better understanding. We have better rotations. We still give up too much penetration.”