Northern Kentucky University isn’t far from the University of Cincinnati. Right across the Ohio River, in fact. But WVU’s men’s basketball team has come a long way from losing an exhibition game to the Division II school in November to beat the Bearcats Saturday. The Mountaineers are 15-5, No. 11 in the RPI and No. 2 in strength of schedule. They should be ranked this afternoon

A year ago, WVU had five losses after 17 games. The record was a game worse after 20 games. So far, so good, right?

“It’s the same team, but it’s just maturing,” said senior forward Kevin Jones, who had his 13th double-double of the season in the Mountaineers’ 77-74 overtime win against Cincinnati on Saturday. “The talent was always there, but I think the younger guys didn’t know how much of a challenge college basketball was going to be. They got a reality check from a Division II team.”

Which leads to this: What is reality today?

The question from the start of this season is relevant now: Is it a good or bad year to be young in the Big East? You’d have to say it’s the right time, right? Syracuse is good, of course, but WVU has beaten the second-place team and one of the teams tied for third. The rest of the league is probably fairly close — I refuse to believe Pitt is the worst team in the conference — and if WVU wins Wednesday at St. John’s and Saturday at Syracuse and gets some help, it could be in first place.

Who thought you’d have to keep an eye on that this year?

Truth is, the league is pretty young, too, and WVU is in position to have one of the four two-day byes in the Big East Tournament. There are 11 games left and the Mountaineers, who are already on a little bit of a roll, have a chance to roll some momentum into Madison Square Garden. This conference doesn’t ket you get on rolls, but maybe this is the year.

Five of the 11 are left against the bottom four teams in the league: home-and-home against Pitt, home against DePaul and on the road against Providence and St. John’s. Three “winnable” road games among the six road games left — Syracuse, Pitt and a really sneaky game at USF to end the regular season.

Remove Syracuse, which has already removed itself form most Big East conversations this season, and WVU’s “hardest” games are at home — Notre Dame, Louisville and Marquette … and I say Pitt, too. DePaul is in there as well, but that’s a bottom-four team.

You figure nothing is going to be easy, not with the constitution of the team, but what if the Mountaineers, who have played a tough schedule, are 3-1 in overtime and have let some wins get away that didn’t get away Saturday, are now ready for what’s next?

“I wanted to give them a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament; that’s why they came here. And I think it helped us. You know, if you don’t play anybody in the preseason schedule and then you can have a game like this and it’s the first time, I mean, guys have a tendency to panic.

“We’ve been in a bunch of ’em. And I think it helps you, especially when you’re young. When you’re older, you should know better anyway, but when you’re as young as we are, I think it helped. I think our non-conference schedule really helped us.”

So back to the title: How high or low can WVU go?