6:27: Greetings from the Garden at the end of a surprisingly uneventful day. The blog is up and running and I spy a few WVU dignitaries in the crowd this evening.

Perhaps they just want an eyeful of the Mountaineers in what is quite likely their final regular-season conference game in Madison Square Garden. It’ll be interesting to see how Bob Huggins shoehorns the Mecca into his schedules when he’s in the Big 12. There are a few tournaments he can get into, but there are also opportunities to play some Big East or East Coast teams here in neutral-site games. I feel like the metro area and the arena are too important to neglect. Smart people agree.

I suppose they could play in Newark and that would be fine, but this little area has been good to WVU recently. Heck, so has the entire state. They could play this on campus at renovated Carnasecca Arena and WVU would have a good chance — witness a 10-3 record in the last 13 games in the Empire State.

6:58: Paulie Z, lead singer of a band called Z02, just sane a four-minute national anthem. He can tell his kids now that he played MSG.

6:59: I don’t know what to do here — it’s mostly empty. I’d say maybe 5,000 out of the 19K+ that I’m used to. If the game gets out of hand late, I might start the postgame press conference early … from my seat … 120 feet from the WVU bench.

7:01: Dilemma for you at home tonight. How do you jeer God’sgift Achiuwa? Or do you even dare? And how do you scream at Sir’Dominic Pointer without sounding reverential?

7:08: Truck not lacking confidence tonight. He’s 0-for-4/0-for-3. That’s at least 11 straight misses from 3.

7:13: Probably exactly what you didn’t want to start three games in six days. Truck is still stuck and WVU has four turnovers and looks a little passive against a zone — and there will eb a zone waiting in Syracuse. Red Storm getting easy shots and baskets to take a 10-4 lead.

7:17: I went back and Truck has missed 14 straight 3s.

7:19: It’s a 16-6 game and I don’t have St. John’s with a jumper made yet. All close scores and layups. This is the sixth game WVU has trailed by at least 10 points. The record was 1-4 in the first five.

7:21: Huggins calls his second time out and WVU attacks the basket for the first time. Gary Browne gets two free throws and I’m sure that’ll be a talking point in the huddle. Everything else has been a settle-for jumper, something KJ likes or a shot they work to get to Kilicli. St. John’s, meanwhile, has five layups, a dunk, a stick-back and 14 points in the paint. The Red Stork has six points off five WVU turnovers. WVU has six points.

7:23: Browne goes 0-for-2 where he’d made 23 of 30, but WVU gets a team rebound but Browne throws away the ball trying to bounce it inside the zone to KJ — and this isn’t a good omen for Saturday.

7:25: Huggins looks flabbergasted. He’s already pressed the Rutledge button.

7:27: Nique blocks a shot, St. John’s gets the rebound and a score and WVU throws it away on the other end. That kind of game here.

7:27: Paul wants the ball because no one is shooting against the zone. Jabarie attacks and misses. St. John’s can’t miss. Ridiculous.

7:29: Twenty points in the paint so far for the Red Storm. Three at the free throw line … and WVU is perhaps fortunate to have drawn three charges or there might be more free throw points.

7:36: The lid is off, I think. Hinds had two threes and WVU is suddenly down just seven.

7:36: … by just nine. God’sgift with a put-back.

7:37: … by 12. Harrison with a nifty transition 3 right after PHW missed a NBA 3. KJ makes two free throws to make it 28-18. I see a little rhythm now.

7:46: St. John’s is getting what it wants inside, which makes me wonder why it shoots so many 3s. And St. John’s is an awful rebounding team — nearly minus-7 in Big East games, where WVU is No. 3 in the league — and St. John’s is just killing WVU on the glass