You are looking live at West Virginia’s warmups for tonight’s game in the Bramlage Coliseum, more appropriately known as the Octagon of Doom. Bruce Weber’s Kansas State teams are 42-5 here and the five losses are by a combined 14 points. (Interestingly, the losses are to Kansas and Texas, because, sure, they’re tough, but also Northern Colorado last season and in back-to-back games this season Texas Southern and Georgia.) Weber’s Wildcats are 20-2 at home in Big 12 play and have won 11 of 14 at home against ranked teams.

The Mountaineers, of course, are ranked No. 17 in both polls. And they’re 9-1 away from home, tied with No. 2 Virginia and No. 3 Gonzaga for the national lead in wins in road/neutral games. (WVU includes that in its game notes now!) This will be hostile, tonight, because it’s always sort of hostile here, hence the nickname. And that nickname has its roots in the 2006-07 season … when the Wildcats hired Bob Huggins and awoke a fan base that was waiting for a jolt. They wanted to make their home a place where they were comfortable and no one else was and they sought a nickname. It really took off under Frank Martin in the 2009-10 season that ended in the Sweet Sixteen. But it’s a Thing and they pelple here take pride in it.

Speaking of Huggins, he left his mark …

… and then promptly showed up at a press conference in the WVU Coliseum, which was about to hang a NIT championship banner some months later, and said, “Yeah, the NIT’s cool, and you can have that and be happy about that, but we don’t want any more of those on our resume.”

Got some items for your resume after the jump.