It was February 8 and West Virginia had just lost by 14 points to No. 8 Kansas, the Mountaineers giving in after giving up a run they tried to hard to avoid for the first 35 minutes. The locker room lecture from Bob Huggins was short by comparison and it pointed toward the future.

“I just told them in there, ‘We’re going to win in Morgantown. When they come back to Morgantown, we’re going to win. We’re going to figure out how to win,’ ” Huggins revealed.

Messages come from the top on this team, and in the hallway outside the locker room a few minutes later,  Eron Harris echoed his coach.

“I think we’re going to be fine,” he said. “This is our first time playing Kansas this year. They had a great crowd, like they always do. We’ve got to get some better play from some people, including myself. But we’ll be fine. I’m very confident in that. I’m ready to play them again. At home last year, we lost by five. We’re better than last year. I’m happy we got to play against them. Like I said, the next time, we’re going to know them a lot better. We’ll be fine.”

What that did in the moment probably can’t be overstated. The Mountaineers had played Oklahoma three days earlier and won to end a 16-game losing streak to ranked teams. They then battled whistles and foul trouble and the opponent’s depth to stick around for much of the game before the bending begat breaking. Two days later, they were to play Iowa State.

WVU won that game and the Sooners-Cyclones upsets seemed to reposition the season and aim it toward something some had hoped for and only few had expected. Yet the Mountaineers lost three in a row a after that and have won only once since, and now here comes Kansas. WVU can speak and act as confidently, but WVU isn’t playing as confidently, which is the worst case because the silver lining a month ago was that the Mountaineers had been close despite playing below-average basketball on the road.

“I thought we played pretty well there,” he said. “It was a four-point game with (five) minutes to go,” Huggins said. “Terry played probably the worst game he’s played since he’s been here. Remi made some shots early, then didn’t make any. I thought we could play a lot better.”

That’s the goal today. Finding a way to win, in all honesty, doesn’t require a lengthy search. “Make shots,” Huggins said.

Make post, Mike said.

I was looking over Wednesday night’s game post and noticed I made a major keystroke error. I said if Henderson played 20 minutes, that was a gift. I thought I typed 10. I meant 10. Honest. He averages 27.6. Ten would have been a gift. Twenty would have been an inheritance. I feel the same today. Henderson is down about 20 pounds. He’s been practicing, but hasn’t been going up and down the court and testing his legs and lungs. He’s far from where he was and wants to be and, again, given what this game means to WVU, I wonder again if Huggins will mess with what his rotation has been for two weeks now to play a guy who’s missed the last four games.

And what’s on the line? A few things, and what follows is a blend of fact and fiction.

NCAA Tournament: Win today and use the conference tournament to get to 19 wins before you can worry about this. I don’t think WVU can lose today and reach the finals of the Big 12 T0urnament and get in as an at-large.

NIT: Win today. I feel pretty safe saying that.

Top-six seed in Big 12 Tournament: It involves Baylor and Oklahoma State, too. To get the No. 6 seed — no higher seed is possible — WVU has to win and Oklahoma State (at Iowa State, 2 p.m.) has to lose. Baylor’s outcome is inconsequential because WVU beats Baylor in a two-team tie-breaker with a win against Kansas. If WVU and Oklahoma State win and Baylor (at Kansas State, 1:30 p.m.) loses, Oklahoma State has the tie-breaker against WVU.

If WVU loses today, it’s the No. 7 or No. 8 seed and plays Wednesday.

The No. 7 seed is better, of course, because TCU is the No. 10 seed and TCU is terrible. The No. 8 seed means a game against tricky Texas Tech. The No. 7 and a win means a quarterfinal game, probably against Oklahoma, which the Mountaineers would prefer over a No. 8 seed, a win and a quarterfinal against Kansas.

Here’s the best-case scenario for WVU: Beat Kansas and get the No. 7 seed — Oklahoma State wins and Baylor loses. As odd as it seems, WVU doesn’t benefit much from a first-round bye. It would behoove the Mountaineers to win today, get the No. 7 seed, beat TCU and go for that 19th win against Oklahoma.

WVU can still get the No. 7 seed with a loss, but that Kansas win is a necessity for NIT and NCAA possibilities.

We’ll know the answers in a few hours. The biggest question: Can the Mountaineers follow through on their prediction made a month ago?