Vignette: The press conference ends. Reporters scatter. Huggins scoots between two tables where the media sits and types. We criss-cross paths. Huggins speaks.

“Mike,” he says, “where’s that sport coat?”

“It’s 80 degrees here.”

“…you wear that for warmth?”

/End scene

Watch the video, consider that exchange and understand Huggins spent a few more minutes in the room chatting with and hugging acquaintances. He’s fine. I would not say he’s happy, but he knows what happened last night, and though he hates to concede defeat, and he was really careful to give Texas credit, he knows, at least in part, why it happened.

But here’s one for you: Apart from the Jimmy V Classic loss to Virginia, when the Cavaliers looked worthy of Final Four mentions in the first week of December, West Virginia doesn’t have much in the line of circumstance-less losses.

The loss to Oklahoma was a loss to a team that would be No. 1 two days later, and it came on a putback just before the buzzer. The loss to Florida was a step outside the conference and on the road. It was against a team that was ridiculously hot and it happened without Jon Holton. The loss to Kansas was without Holton and, you know, at Kansas.

Last night’s loss at Texas, where the Longhorns are now 13-1, was without Daxter Miles and then saw leading scorer Jaysean Paige limp off the floor and finish scoreless for the first time all season. Tarik Phillip’s second foul in the first half was not helpful, either.

(Missing one! Home loss to Texas, when WVU managed 49 points and looked listless beyond explanation, except that it came on the heels of the Kansas win and the Oklahoma loss. Is that a circumstance that lumps it in with the others? Or is it so far from the track record that it doesn’t much matter to the conversation?)

But on the whole, the losses have “yeah, but” stuff that leaves you wondering if the record might not be much better. Really, WVU could walk away from three or four losses and say, “Yeah, but this would have been a different game if not for that one thing.”

It’s strange, and I do wonder about this.

If the selection committee is going to evaluate Syracuse with and without Jim Boeheim, and since we know it does consider injuries and “circumstances that may have affected a team‘s performance in certain games, such as weather-related travel difficulties,” which could possibly be molded to account for a suspension, then doesn’t WVU, its losses and injuries/suspension factor into it?

The Mountaineers don’t have a loss outside the RPI top 30ish (Florida floats in and out of the top 30) but they’re 5-6 again at the top 50, and three of the losses have the asterisks I’ve attempted to craft here. How would the committee view an 8-3 or a 7-4 mark against the top 50? Differently, for sure, so maybe the circumstances merit consideration?

It’s not a reach to say it could be the difference, one way or the other, between a 2 seed and a 3 or between a 4 and a 5.

(Aside: The Boeheim thing is rubbish. For one, the Orange are a tournament team. But suppose it’s a close call and Syracuse gets the nod. The committee will overlook that the team went 4-5 without Boeheim and lost three conference games and four games against teams that won’t make the tournament? Fine. But suppose Syracuse was 9-0 under Mike Hopkins. You’re telling me that wouldn’t matter?)

I’m not sure Miles makes much of a difference last night, and the Miles-Teyvon Myers swap was, what, negligible?

I’m positive Paige mattered. He was in and out in a hurry early, and WVU looked wobbly without him. Then he comes in and rolls his ankle and, well, you know what happened, but I think you were right to worry right then and there what might happen.

WVU can’t go like it wants to go without two guards who play 45 minutes a game.

Paige tried to play in the second half but did not last. He finished scoreless for the first time this season — meaning the Mountaineers were missing more than 24 points without Paige and Miles — but the impact was perhaps greater on defense.

“When Jaysean went down, that’s two guards we’re down,” forward Nathan Adrian said. “The way we play, you pretty much can’t play with three guards at that point. You can’t ask three people to run up and down the floor without getting tired and giving up buckets. When we started giving up buckets, we had to drop back into a zone.”

The Mountaineers (20-6, 9-4 Big 12) said they worked on their press more than normal in practice this week, and coach Bob Huggins figured he’d have to use it more without Miles — and then he lost Paige. What WVU wasn’t planning on was for Texas to shoot 10 for 22 from 3-point range and go 6 for 6 after starting 2 or 7.

“We didn’t think everyone would hit shots like that,” guard Tarik Phillip said. “No. 10 — I don’t even now the dude’s name. But No. 10 was hot.”

It all snowballed — the zone was “horrible,” according to Huggins, but it was necessary; the press was diced, but how else was WVU going to get back into the game? — and WVU was still a longshot or two away at the end.

A loss? Yeah, but it might have been different. As it is, the Mountaineers are no longer in first place, and they’re on weak legs, if you will, with Miles and his hamstring and Paige and his ankle and a tricky Oklahoma/Iowa State Saturday/Monday coming up.

Say Miles and Paige can’t play Saturday. Win or lose, when that one’s over, they’re 52 hours away from their next game. I think we saw last year how Huggins will treat the schedule and injuries, and honestly, if WVU loses Saturday, the Big 12 title is probably out of reach, although Kansas has a sneaky at Kansas State/at Baylor coming up.

Then again, this is obvious, but worth stating: WVU has been swept by Texas and could be swept by Oklahoma Saturday, and those are big-time chips in conference tournament seeding. I don’t think a Big 12 tournament game against Texas is out of the question, but it might also be something the Mountaineers seek to avoid. Remember, they’ve never won a Big 12 tournament game.

Yeah, but this team, which hasn’t won back-to-back games since beating Texas Tech to reach first place and then Kansas State late last month and has had five different starting lineups in 11 games is also the team that keeps doing things it hadn’t or shouldn’t done and seems to have a rabbit in the hat.