WVU was supposed to be in Wichita early enough yesterday to do some stuff on the ground there and eat a meal at about 10 p.m. The Mountaineers didn’t land in Wichita until a little before 3 a.m. There’s never good timing for flight trouble — See: Tournament, NCAA 2009 — and this is just awful timing. WVU plays at 9 p.m. ET  tonight on ESPN2 and then plays host to Miami at 7 p.m. Saturday. It’s early on, but the Mountaineers really can’t go 0-2 and hope to make enough of the non-conference schedule and RPI to put to use toward the NCAA Tournament.

I know what you’re thinking. “Man, these guys have really bad luck when it comes to travel.” They do, yes, but John Beilein’s teams had it worse, I assure you. And Beilein’s teams had those troubles on commercial flights. Huggins and his teams charter everywhere,  which only makes this more unusual. But Beilein’s teams just couldn’t catch a break, particularly in those 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.

As for the game itself tonight, it does mean a little more than normal for Huggins, who coached Kansas State for one season, and for the players, who really want to get the win for Huggins against one of his former teams. But this is not like that first game against Cincinnati in 2008 — “We set the school record for ineptness,” Huggins remembered. — and it won’t and can’t be treated like that first game back in Cincinnati in 2009.

“We wanted it so bad,” said WVU senior point guard Truck Bryant, who started as a freshman that season. “That was rough. We really wanted to go in there and win it for him. It’s something on our mind now, but really, we just want to go in and get a win.”

Huggins doesn’t see Cincinnati to be like Kansas State at all. The histories are far different and the circumstances aren’t near the same. Simply stated, Cincinnati’s president didn’t want Huggins while Huggins didn’t want to leave Kansas State.

“His wife (June) and him loved it here,” Martin said. “I have said this before, but I was with him when someone called and offered him $2 million and he hung up on them. About two hours later, someone offered him $2.5 million and he hung up on them.  He was not leaving here for another job. He could have tripled his salary.”