Juwan Staten said something this week that has since stuck with me. “It’s hard to beat a team three times in a season …”

Is it? I don’t know, but that line, the one repeated so often in March, seems like the fallback for a losing team. I’m not accusing WVU of that — quite the contrary, which I’ll get to in a moment — but in my experience, it’s a thing pulled out of despair.

When one team is better than another team two times — and in the case of Texas in relation to WVU, by 28 points, 13 baskets and 34 rebounds — why can’t it be better three times? If it’s easy twice, why not thrice?

And I’m not saying there isn’t some truth to it. Teams do figure one another out and a game plan for a conference tournament game be simple because you’ve already drawn up scouting reports twice before. And sometimes its simplified because of the short time between games.

And let’s not forget Texas Tech did beat WVU here last year.

That said, I don’t think it’s relevant and I don’t think it’s as easy as that for either side tonight. I don’t think Texas wins by turning in a lineup and I don’t think WVU wins just because it has some probability edge.

I do think there’s a portion of that Staten quote that needs to be included for the purpose of this conversation. “It’s hard to beat a team three times in a season, and beating Kansas can definitely be a confidence boost. With the mix of those two, we should be OK as we head to play Texas.”

I feel like the game Saturday matters way more than the two games against Texas, and if you want to delve deeper into that, Texas scored 53 points and lost to Texas Tech Saturday. Swagger and baggage are your accomplices tonight.

It’s funny, but WVU has lost four out of six to end the regular season, but it’s one of those teams here that has people talking in Cinderellaic tones. Having covered the Mountaineers all season, I can assure you it doesn’t take much to buoy their confidence. Having seen them this week, I can assure you they feel really good about where they are as they begin this thing.

The explanation? Believe it or not, what they do tonight, and perhaps even tomorrow night, may very well end up being shaped by what they did last night.

“We gave them a choice to go to the movies,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said. “It may have had something to do with the selection of movies, but we gave them a choice and they wanted to watch games.”

The Mountaineers chose a few more hours in that gym, those coming after a shootaround Wednesday morning and then a three-hour practice later in the day.

“Last year,” forward Kevin Noreen said, “we would have said movies. I guarantee that.”

Last year, the Mountaineers weren’t here very long. Whether they said it or not, they knew that was going to be the case and they didn’t do much to combat that eventuality. This year, the immediate outlook doesn’t appear much better because the Longhorns have not only had WVU’s number, but they’ve taken that number and beaten the Mountaineers over their heads with it.

Yet WVU (17-14, 9-9 Big 12) is here, emboldened by Saturday’s win against Kansas and empowered by the knowledge of the many things that have gone wrong the two times the Mountaineers tangoed with Texas (22-9, 11-7). One reason the Mountaineers chose games over movies was because they wanted to see in person a team they plan to play in the next round.

“This feels like it was my first year, which was the year after the Final Four,” said Noreen, a fourth-year junior who took a medical redshirt that season. “Those guys were just more focused. Even at the end when we’re just shooting free throws at the shootaround, there’s not a lot of goofing around, not a lot of joking around. We’re staying focused because we know we’ll probably need free throws for the game. Guys take scouting reports a lot more seriously. It’s rubbed off on the freshmen. They’re really attuned to what coaches are telling them now.”

The hole idea that the Mountaineers are in a good place isn’t really crazy or even contrived because with Terry Henderson back and Devin Williams playing at a high level and some better defensive and rebounding games strung together recently, WVU has more pieces in place right now than it has in quite some time.

“We’ve always known our potential,” Harris said. “It was just a matter of buying in and giving 100 percent every single time. It’s a matter of being unselfish and having a will. I think we all have that now.”

Look, I don’t know if that’s all true. I don’t know if everything is right and the Mountaineers are rolling. I’m not even sure they’re playing all that well. But I believe that they believe it. I believe they believe they’re going to be all right.

And if we look at the season from start to present, we see a team that’s been asked a lot of questions and has had an answer to so many of them. There’s power in that and tonight the Mountaineers seek to unleash it on a team that’s probably feeling really good about the matchups. If you can’t combat that physically, then you’re left with one alternative.

Let’s blog, because there is no alternative.