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WVU v. Texas Tech: He’s heating up!

You are looking live at Gentleman Bob Huggins’ Saturday-morning salutation, an invitation to cozy up to the television and enjoy Mark Neely and Jerod Ward on ESPNEWS for WVU v. Texas Tech.

Interesting twist today: The benevolent Big 12 has for the past two years given WVU a Texas Tech/TCU road trip to start conference play, which gives the Mountaineers a chance to make one trip and play two games without missing any time in the classroom. But that means WVU has played the Red Raiders and Horned Frogs in gyms without student sections.

I’m not sure that means much at TCU, but it likely matters here. This is, for some reason, a hard place to play, and the fans can get into it and bother teams. But WVU’s played before 6,000 and 5,000 the past two seasons — and 8,000 in 2013, when students were on campus.

They’re in town today, and their team isn’t bad. That much we know. What we don’t know is whether we’ll see a motorcycle.

This is important.

You see, the 2013 experience here was pretty fun. It was a small crowd at the start, but it grew and the fans were tuned in, and they locked on the players. One fan critiqued Aaric Murray with, “You have a very narrow base, sir.” But remember the smog alert before the tip? There was a motorcycle and fire in the home team intros.

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(Never forget the true memory from that live post.)

There was no motorcycle the past two years, and I think I know why.

Blame it on Showtime Tubby Smith.

These two have been in a few dicey games against one another since WVU joined the league. Two games were were decided by two points — one at the buzzer in the Big 12 tournament — and one was decided by three points here in overtime.

Another in 2014 was a six-point win for WVU, but it was the Dusty Hannhs game, when he shot a scare into the Coliseum and talked a lot of smack. (Aside: Hannahs plays for Arkansas now, and he’s great. I bet he reminds Keaton Miles all the time that he scored more points in the Coliseum.)

Last year’s games were both decided by double digits, but the one here was tense and buoyed by a returning Juwan Staten, and the one at WVU was ferocious. Remember Brandon Watkins and the double bird? The Red Raiders did not care for WVU’s tactics that day.

Well, Norense Odiase, who’s been pretty good this season, will not play. He’s out with a broken foot. It’s bad news for  his team, but also for me. I have a terrific story, if I must say so myself, waiting on Odiase’s return to the Coliseum, what he remembers and what he did not know about that night last season. Get well soon, big fella.

Get onto the post, everybody. (WiFi not working and no one here cares to help beyond reminding me that I need to connect to the network and key in the password. I always get that confused!)