There isn’t one formula to use to win, because players and coaches and officials — which is to say “games” — vary too much from moment to moment, never mind from one day or week or month to the next. But WVU’s got a pretty solid thing going: Fifteen straight wins when it builds a 10-point lead and a 22-1 record in such games this season. (The exception: Virginia in the Jimmy V Classic, and if we’re being honest, the savvy Cavaliers were better built to come back at that point of the season than light-green WVU was to protect that 12-point cushion. Today? Different story, for sure.)

Ten points can come and go quickly with the 3-point shot as well as the shorter shot clock and strict officiating, but WVU makes it work.

It’s not easy to come back from 10 or 12 or 15 or however many points down and just get even again, and then a team that gets even has to get ahead and stay ahead. Comebacks often fall flat because the team with the lead is guilty of taking breaks and the team rallying hits the gas. When the two intersect, one is slowing down and another can shift back to that good gear.

But it’s another thing altogether to play catchup against WVU’s 94-by-50 defense, rebounding and general relentlessness. The Mountaineers were 21-2 when they held a double-digit lead last season.

I don’t have the number in front of me, but I want to say WVU was 19-1 in 2005 when it had a lead of 10 points or more. I know there was just one loss, and it was the Elite Eight game against Louisville, which, coincidentally, ditched its zone and trapped and pressed its way back from a 20-point first-half deficit.

John Beilein’s teams did it a much different way than what Bob Huggins is doing now, but neither approach is wrong.

That WVU team got in front and then, by the nature of its offense, used the clock and its half-court execution as lethal leverage against opponents.

This WVU team can hit an opponent with a big run or pepper a team with little spurts that over time create a big lead. From there, the opposition has to hasten its approach, and that plays into WVU’s defensive plan. A team is taxing itself before WVU puts flour on the rolling pin. That’s how the game swung Saturday, as hard as that may have been to forecast.

Baylor’s a steady team with careful guards and proven play. The Bears are 17-1 when they lead at halftime and 21-1 when they lead in the second half. They Bears can also get back into games. They trailed by 26 in the first half at Oklahoma Monday and had the lead late in the second half before falling short — the lone loss in the 21-1 stat.

The Mountaineers scored the first eight points of the second half, though, and used a 17-4 run powered by pressure and turnovers to take a 16-point lead. Baylor worked 11 points off that with five straight made 3-pointers, but a lot of energy went into that, and WVU has shown us it can take a punch and start swinging again.

There’s a story in this for the postseason, I’m sure. Said postseason begins at 7 p.m. Thursday against the winner of Wednesday’s Texas Tech-TCU game.