So Bob Huggins reached for the top shelf and dusted off the full-court press this season. It’s a difference-maker throughout a regular season, of course, but it matters more in the postseason when teams don’t have a lot of time to attempt to simulate what the Mountaineers do.

Respect due to the Big 12 coach of the year, but he was second in line in Morgantown. Tony Gibson, the football team’s defensive coordinator, restored the equally unpredictable 3-3-5 odd stack this past season and then unleashed his players with a bevy of blitzes.

He did over 100 yards what Huggins does over 94 feet. Gibson is a basketball fanatic, though, and he understands, appreciates and identifies with what Huggins is doing this season and why.

“We weren’t good at turnovers,” Gibson said, as aware as anyone his defense was No. 113 nationally in turnovers gained last season. “But here’s what it did for us: All those fast-tempo teams, it slowed them down, and we were better on third down. We were ninth in the country in third-down defense and we were 15th in the country in three-and-outs because we put pressure on them and we got off the field. Sometimes that’s better than a turnover.”

WVU played one more game and 57 fewer snaps last season than the year before, meaning not only that there were fewer opportunities for turnovers, but that the offense had the ball more often, and that’s the key to any sport.

Huggins’ team doesn’t shoot very well. Lately the free-throw line has been a struggle, too. But by stealing the ball and turning teams over, by taking that aggression to the backboards, WVU creates enough extra shots to score a sufficient amount of points.

The Mountaineers average around three fewer points per game this season than they did last season. They only take about two more shots per game this season and the average number of possessions per game is just about the same. But opponents only average 0.95 points per possession now, a top 50 average nationally. A season ago it was in the top 100 at 1.12, and the scoring average has plummeted from 75.1 points per game to 66.4 because WVU makes every possession an adventure.

“The thing I see that I understand about basketball is what it does to the guy with the ball,” Gibson said. “It rattles him. It’s like with the quarterback — he has the ball. If you put heat on him, the first thing he does is pick it up, and he starts to panic and his eyes go everywhere. And when he knows he’s about to get trapped, he looks everywhere instead of doing what his coach told him. You can dictate the tempo and get them all out of whack.

“I saw the Kansas game here and Kansas didn’t run a set play it looked like the whole first half. It sped them up,” Gibson said. “I don’t know if it’s anxiety or nerves or what, but the press rattles you and completely throws off the tempo, and it’s hard to win when you play that way.”