Bruh, can’t you take another day off?

We’re live at the (/turns around, cranes neck) United Supermarkets Arena for WVU v. Texas Tech. Juwan Staten is good to go today, but Elijah Macon will not play. He picked up some bruised ribs at practice yesterday.

The Red Raiders are 10-1 at home this season, and the only loss was Saturday against No. 10 Texas. That’s three losses in the past four games after a promising 9-1 start. The Mountaineers, who are now ranked No. 14, are tied for the national lead in wins away from home. They’d be alone in first place with a win tonight, and that seems very possible because some of WVU’s best moments this season have been far from the Coliseum.

The Mountaineers were outscored by 11 points in the first half against Boston College in the semifinal in Puerto Rico, but outscored the Eagles by 15 after halftime. In the final of that tournament, WVU built a 15-point lead to beat then-No 17 UConn.

Three days later, the team scored a season-high 103 points in a 31-point win against VMI in the Charleston Civic Center.

The loss to LSU was followed by three consecutive games away from home, and WVU won at Northern Kentucky by outscoring the Norse 47-25 after halftime, survived Marshall at the Civic Center and then shot a season-high 53.4 percent in Madison Square Garden to beat North Carolina State by 14 points.

On Saturday, WVU scored 48 points in the second half, the most in any half against TCU this season, and outpaced the nation’s sixth-ranked scoring defense with more points than the Horned Frogs had allowed all season.

Consequently, WVU is off to its best start since the 1981-82 team won 24 of its first 25 games.

“I don’t think we get into where we’re at, to be honest,” WVU forward Devin Williams said. “Nobody gets into where we play. We just go out and play. It doesn’t matter. The most important part when I’m playing is when if I feel like something isn’t going right, I can look at somebody on my team and see they’re ready. That gives me confidence I can go out there and play and I know my team’s going to be there with me.”

It’d behoove WVU to bank this one because what follows is just rude: home Saturday against No. 17 Iowa State, home Jan. 13 against No. 16 Oklahoma and on the road Jan. 17 against Texas. The fourth game? TCU. I don’t think WVU particularly enjoyed Saturday’s experience, so that’s not exactly a break, either.

Let’s bounce…