Jabarie Hinds and Dominique Rutledge worked on pick-and-roll drills for more  than 30 minutes Tuesday. I figure sooner or later one or both will have a big game. And sooner or later Kevin Jones won’t get his customary 20 points. He’s done it in nine games in a row now and can join Rod Hundley and Jerry West with the longest streak in school history if he does it tonight against Notre Dame.

A while back, you would have thought it could be a lock. In non-conference play, the Fighting Irish were apt to give up a big game. Nine opponents scored at least 20 points in 13 games, including five in the final five before Big East play. But in 11 conference games, no one has scored more than 18 against the Irish. Jones, though, has Notre Dame’s attention.

“He would be my player of the year candidate right now,” Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey said. “I’m very impressed with him. As much as the numbers, I love how he leads and sets the tone and watching him interact with his teammates. He’s such a man, such a mature guy.”

How about this? Even with this hot streak — and he wasn’t exactly chilly before that — Jones is averaging 20.8 points per game. Only 15 players in the country average 20 a game this season. Jones could end up as the first WVU player to average 20 since Drew Schifino did it as a sophomore in 2003. In 29 games, he scored 20 points 14 times. In his NCAA-best 48-game streak with at least 10 points — the one that ended ingloriously against … Notre Dame … in 2004 — he scored 20 points 19 times.

It’s hard to get to and Jones has taken, shall we say, an unconventional path.

“I think I can put it in perspective,” Huggins said. “He’s taken 375 shots on the year (377) and 105 of them are offensive rebounds, which means he’s taken 260 shots out of the offense and the other (107) shots have come out of rebounding the ball.

“When you rebound the ball that consistently and rebound the ball that consistently offensively, you’re going to score, particularly when you finish around the rim like he does.”

Jones had an off day Sunday (and still managed 20 points) because, as he and as his coach say, Jones pressed and pushed too hard too early and never got back on track. He says it was because WVU trailed by 15 points early. Bob Huggins says Jones heard a bit too much of the “This is your team” talk that grew out of the five-day break after the first three-game losing streak since the 2005-06 season.

Whatever the case, it was his worst game since Dec. 3 at Mississippi State — and WVU lost that one, but has grown enough to win Sunday. The Mountaineers had four days off after the loss to the Bulldogs and Jones studied the game and how he played and listened to Huggins and what he had to say.

“I didn’t play as well as my team needed me to play to win against Mississippi State and I took that to heart,” he said. “I watched the game tape to see what I forced, maybe what I didn’t do on the court, and I worked on my game more and since then I’ve been able to make more shots.”

Uh, yeah, that’s accurate. And it happened right away. He rebounded from the Mississippi State game in a pretty strong way in the next game.