We’re live at the Sprint Center, primed and pumped for tonight’s WVU v. TCU game. Earlier in the day, potential nemesis Texas was eliminated by Baylor and Kansas crushed Kansas State. The Mountaineers are expected to roll tonight into the semifinal against either Oklahoma or Iowa State, who play next. WVU is a 16-point favorite, and of all the conference tournament games today, there is only one larger spread.

(Cal State Bakersfield is an 18 1/2-point favorite against Chicago State in the WAC tournament … and I await your explanations for how a team in Chicago ended up in the WAC.)

So WVU is supposed to have an easy go of it tonight, and if that is the case it’s surely the result of winning the guard matchup. As Larry Harrison explained, TCU relies on its backcourt, but WVU’s been successful in the two games this season because it’s bigger guards have been better.

“I think our size and maybe our physicality at times help us, because our guards are a little bigger than theirs,” Harrison said. “With Parrish and Collins, we just can’t let those two guys get open looks, because they can hurt us on the perimeter.”

The Mountaineers want Collins to be “dead on the catch,” which means a defender has to be with Collins when he gets the pass so he doesn’t get to take clean shots, but defenders need to play tight across the court, whether on the ball or inside of sets. TCU runs a lot of plays, and the Mountaineers want to disrupt as many things as they can.

“You try to make them just play basketball and get them out of rhythm and get them out of what they want to do and out of what they practice,” Bob Huggins explained. “Guys don’t practice just playing basketball. You run sets and have your point guard start sets. We try to take away the point guard and make it tough for him to play and make him play basketball.”

With that in mind, Jevon Carter’s responsibilities are significant tonight. He’s seemingly settling in as a point guard as his play and the offense’s play have both improved of late.

In WVU’s four-game winning streak, the best entering a conference tournament since the 1996-97 season, Carter is 8 for 22 from the floor, but 3 for 6 in each of the past two games. He has 17 assists and six turnovers and two games without a miscue. WVU’s averaged 81.5 points and twice reached the 90s.

“He was used to scoring the ball,” Huggins said. “Those guys worry about where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do and about reading screens and those kind of things. When you’ve got the ball and you’re handling it all the time, you worry about where everybody is.

“You can’t run a set if you have somebody in the wrong place. You can’t run a set if you’ve got somebody on the wrong side of the floor. Those guys are in charge of not only knowing what they’re supposed to do but what everyone on the floor is supposed to do.”

But Carter’s defense has, quietly, been pretty good again, and it must be good against TCU.

There were a few occasions earlier this season when Huggins went out of his way to say Carter wasn’t playing good defense. And now, at the end of his sophomore season, he’s on the all-defense team again.

“It means a lot,” he said. “It’s my second time doing it. Hopefully I can do it the next two years I’m here.”

We do spend some time dissecting all-conference teams and awards, but I tend to trust the way the coaches vote for all-defense more than I do for the other stuff. And coaches, it turns out, have had a lot to do with Carter’s season.

“Larry and I both had talks with him about, ‘We’re not going to be as good if you’re not as good on the ball,’ ” Huggins said. “When he’s on the ball, people are so worried about him that it’s too hard to look around and see what else is going on. He does a great job on the ball. For a while, that suffered a little bit, in all honesty.

“I think it says a lot about him. What was it Lou Holtz said about Billy Ray Smith? He wasn’t an All-American because he got knocked down. He was an All-American because he didn’t stay down. He got up, took the shortest route to the ball-carrier and arrived in a bad mood. That’s kind of what you’ve got to do.”

Carter’s struggle had two causes. One was his transition to full-time point guard and how the responsibilities and what he felt he owed his teammates weighed on him. The other was how the games were being officiated this season, especially early in the schedule. This plagued Dax Miles, as well.

“They heard and saw so much of this any-touch-on-the-perimeter-is-a-foul that it was hard to lock in and guard,” Huggins said.

Carter ceded ground to stay in games, but he’s made up a lot of ground since then.

“I feel like we’re used to it now,” he said. “At first, it was kind of hard. You really couldn’t touch the offensive player at all. Now you’re used to it. You’ve got to get better defensively and move your feet without fouling.”