… I had no idea about the now famous Bob Huggins speech to his player in the locker room after the March 2010 loss to UConn. The story after that game was Huggins getting ejected, WVU playing poorly, then recovering, then fading on the road and what, if anything, could this once top-10 team do in the postseason.

The traveling media didn’t know about what Huggins says is “like the Gettysburg Address in West Virginia now.” He rehashed it for the radio audience, but never brough it up in his press conference. His players weren’t quite sure what they’d just witnessed and didn’t really know what do to with it.

“It was definitely a special moment,” said Jones, who with Truck Bryant and Deniz Kilicli are the only current players who played in that game.

“We didn’t know it at the time, but looking back on it now, that moment was really pivotal toward our success the rest of the year. You don’t want to come out and repeat the same mistakes anymore.”

Huggins doesn’t have to give the speech, or some variation, these days. Jones, Bryant and Kilicli protect the image they helped to craft. They make sure the younger players understand what they were once made to understand.

“When you have a bunch of young guys, they can kind of get bored of you talking to them over and over about the same things,” Jones said. “But when me and Truck come in and express to them what these Big East games mean, I think they get it a little better.”

The Mountaineers are back where it all began tonight and perhaps that’s a heck of a coincidence. Never before this season has this team felt quite as good as it does right now.

As badly as the team played at Seton Hall, the Mountaineers have come to understand the Pirates are just a very good team. WVU then routed Rutgers and ended Georgetown’s 11-game winning streak. That the Mountaineers have won five in a row against the Hoyas, each time when the opponent was ranked, sure does matter and it shows that maybe players change, but results must not.

So there’s a little confidence and some of the trappings that come with that, but the road trip and the short prep grabs your attention. Understand UConn is going to be angry, too, with back-to-back losses to Seton Hall and Rutgers.

Now might be a good time for WVU to remember, or to understand, it’s never easy, no matter how good you feel, in the Big East.

“The thing about it is you have so many opportunities,” Huggins said. “In some leagues, you might get one a year. In this league, you have them seemingly every night out. And the ones not in the top 25 probably ought to be. We lost to Seton Hall (14-2). If Seton Hall’s not a top 25-team after what they’ve done, I don’t know who is.

“We just get so many chances in this league. You can’t get down and you can’t too up. You’ve got to maintain an even keel.”