This was a fun little week for Juwan Staten, who on Monday made a pair of plays to pilfer and then preserve a game against No. 8 Kansas and get No. 23 West Virginia back on track at a time it needed just that. (And with that sequence being one of those most memorable occasions, I figure you can’t get enough of it, so here’s a very good look at the Kansas side of the finish.)

The Mountaineers took two days off following the win and devoted practices Thursday and Friday to getting ready for the first of two remaining games against No. 22 Oklahoma State. The Cowboys, with two of the league’s top three scorers and a zone press engineered by the league’s co-leaders in steals, have followed three straight wins against ranked teams with two straight losses. WVU really does believe it’s a formidable road team, and perhaps better geared to play the way it wants to and has to play away from home, so Gallagher-Iba Arena will be a test and maybe even a treat. Recent results suggest otherwise — 27-, 19- and 20-point road losses, and oh, yeah, WVU hasn’t beaten Oklahoma State in a Big 12 game — but Monday did happen

The topper? This morning, Staten was named a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award. He’s one of 16 players on the list, and Staten and Iowa State’s Monte Morris are the only Big 12 players included.

Staten, in so many ways, is who and what you want from a point guard, and let’s set the obvious offensive and defensive abilities aside. When you’re a 1, you have to be a coach on the floor and a father figure off of it. Staten, of course, is gone after this season, and you know that’s going to be a big void to fill next season, but you’d have to think Jevon Carter gets the first shot at following Staten.

Carter said Staten has been like his big brother throughout his freshman season and that he knew when he was in high school and waiting to enroll he’d have to take full advantage of Staten’s presence the one year they’d be on campus together.

Monday night saw the Mountaineers reap the rewards of Staten’s stewardship.

The first 3-pointer was a play designed and called for Carter, who shoots just 31.2 percent from 3-point range, but has Staten’s praise as “one of the best shooters I’ve been around.”

“I’ve got the preseason Big 12 player of the year,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said, “and I’m drawing up plays for a freshman.”

So was the preseason player of the year. The second 3-pointer came on an assist from Staten, who has a penchant for taking games over late, but who for days had been pleading with Carter to think less and shoot more.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in him, but I always talk to him to get him to shoot the ball,” Staten said. “What better way to show the confidence I have in him than to get him the ball like that? I just made that one pass to him and hoped he didn’t have time to think about anything other than shooting it.”

With the outcome of the game, and the direction of the season, in his hands, Carter’s shot was on while his brain was off.

“I wasn’t really even focused on the score,” Carter said. “When I hit the 3s, I honestly thought the game was tied, and when I hit the first shot, I thought we went up. I didn’t know we were still losing. Then (after the second) I looked up at the scoreboard and saw we were up one. ‘Didn’t I just hit two 3s? Shouldn’t we be winning by more? We must have been down a whole lot.’

“I just didn’t even know. I was playing so hard I didn’t even look at the score.”