You are looking live from the student section as No. 18 Oklahoma warms up for tonight’s game against No. 16 West Virginia … on ESPN News.

No, that’s not a typo. Yes, that’s a channel. Yep, it shows games. I got two calls asking those very questions today.

And what of this game? Two teams coming in on the back foot.

Oklahoma had Kansas State at home Saturday and looked to go 3-0 in Big 12 play after opening with a win against ranked Baylor and then crushing top-10 Texas at the Frank Erwin Center. You don’t just walk into the Frank Erwin Center and do that!

The Sooners looked fit, but the Wildcats, a tepid 7-6 in non-conference play — including a loss to Aaric Murray-less Texas Southern — and then 1-1 in Big 12 play with a requisite win against TCU and a beatdown at the hands of Oklahoma State, won in overtime in Norman.

The Mountaineers? A pair of seven-game winning streaks sandwiched a loss to LSU that doesn’t look that bad. Iowa State, though, proved again to be WVU’s foil and sneaked out with a two-point win. It was a home loss for the Mountaineers, but the blow was lessened next to two wins on the road. That said, WVU seeks tonight to preserve whatever remains of a home-court advantage. Back-to-back home losses, no matter the opponent? This aggression, man.

There are plenty of good guards in the Big 12, and we’ll see a few tonight in WVU’s preseason player of the year and Oklahoma’s terrific Jordan Woodward-Isaiah Cousins-Buddy Hield trio. We overlook forwards and the way the league’s teams use and feature them. Iowa State had Georges Niang, Dustin Hogue and Bryce DeJean Jones and will blossom when they blend in Jameel McKay. We’ll see more of the same tonight with perhaps the best frontcourt tandem in the conference — and no, it’s not Devin Williams and Jonathan Holton.

Oklahoma’s TaShawn Taylor is probably leading the way now for newcomer of the year. He trails only Hogue in field-goal percentage (57.3) and is No. 14 in scoring (11.9), No. 11 in rebounding (6.1) and No. 7 in blocked shots (1.7). This isn’t a fluke, either, because he started all 96 games the previous three years at Houston, where the 6-foot-8, 245 pound senior averaged 14.5 points and 8.7 rebounds per game and shot 57.1 percent from the floor. He’s a close-to-ideal fit for what this veteran offensive group does.

And yet he’s not the forward to beware tonight.

Ryan Spangler is one of the best overall players in the league, and yet he says and means — and legitimizes himself with — things like this: “I never really cared about points.”

Mind you, Oklahoma has what’s probably the most organized and effective attack in the Big 12 — when clicking — because Woodward is a point guard who gets to the line like crazy, Hield is a tremendous outside-in shooter/scorer, Cousins can get high-volume points without high-volume shots and Thomas has found a spot and settled in nicely.

Spangler is the engine, man. He’s a hustling, rebounding, passing, fine-I’ll-score force who defers to the other four players who nevertheless follow his lead. He wins with effort — and a lot of skill … let’s not ignore that — and he’ll be a factor against the press tonight. But what’s most interesting about Spangler this year is how the former Gonzaga player has developed to be more like his teammates. He dribbles and drives now, he takes and makes jumpers and he’s 8 for 19 from 3-point range. Good luck with that tonight.

“I don’t think last year I was as confident as I should have been, but I worked a lot on my shooting and I’m a lot more confident in it now, which is pretty easy on this team,” he said. “They’ll feed me way more than last year.”

Let’s eat…