Oh, we all remember this from back in late-February. Mike Carey is authentic. Nothing is manufactured. Moments aren’t contrived. That press conference was, of course, born out of sustained frustrations, but it wasn’t something he’d been thinking of for days or weeks. It wasn’t like he was waiting for a loss to use to light the fuse. So he said what he said, and on Tuesday he admitted he probably shouldn’t have done it where he did it and he certainly shouldn’t have used all the words he used. But what he said he meant because what he says he means. “Sometimes,” he said, “I just don’t say it the right way.”

I would disagree, but that’s not the point.

What was to be taken from that seven-plus minutes of honesty was what he said and insinuated about the roster … namely that what was going wrong was on the players and some of them would not be back next season. That one line, the very title for this post, was important. He would eventually say the pressure from that point forward wasn’t about the season or the NCAA tournament or the WNIT, but about evaluating personnel.

And WVU had four regular-season games left to play, plus the Big 12 tournament and either a sixth straight NCAA appearance of the third WNIT of Carey’s 14 seasons (!) with the Mountaineers. How they — they — moved on after that was dripping with intrigue.

Well, they’ve played 10 games since then. They’re 7-3 and they play host to Temple at 7 p.m. for a spot in the WNIT championship game. There’s a huge cliff from the NCAA tournament down to the (W)NIT, but Carey’s team rappelled when it could have rebelled, and the spot in the semifinals is linked to Carey’s speech.

“I think so,” he said Tuesday. “I think they understand now, and I’ve said it in timeouts. ‘We’re playing like West Virginia now.’ I praise them, too. And we’re playing like how West Virginia plays. This is what I was talking about during the course of the year. They’re showing compassion. They care if we win or lose. They work hard in practice and they make each other accountable now, which wasn’t occurring.”

But what’s it all mean? Well, a student reporter asked Carey Tuesday how this postseason experience could benefit the 2015-16 team, a quality query since this team bloomed late and because the Mountaineers have but three seniors. Carey’s reply: Genuine once again. “I think it’ll be a different team, to be honest with you. It’s great to be playing at this time of the year, but I think there’ll be a lot of new players in here.”

When Carey said Feb. 18 that he was going to fix it — “I sound like Coach Huggins now. [Criminy.] I’ve got to quit doing that, too. But I’m going to fix it. I’m going to surprise a lot of freakin’ people now.” — he knew he’d follow through whenever the season ended. It comes to its conclusion either tonight or three days from now in either Charleston, Los Angeles or Ann Arbor, Mich., and the past six weeks have changed his mood, but not his mind.

“I’m going to do the same things I do every year,” he said. “I’ll have individual meetings with each player, and at that time a decision will be made. I’ll have it well-thought-out. The worst thing I can do is make decisions when I’m mad or happy or whatever, but I’ve got to make decisions that are best for West Virginia University and our program.”