You re looking live at Gallagher-Iba Arena, home of Oklahoma State. Today, Big 12 play begins as the Cowboys play host to No. 11 West Virginia. The Mountaineers will go without Elijah Macon, who’s sitting out with a right knee injury. He was injured in the Dec. 23 win against Northern Kentucky, but Macon didn’t start that game, either. The honor that day went to Brandon Watkins, and that’s the case today, too. Macon is classified as day-to-day.

Oklahoma State, as you surely know, is coached by Brad Underwood, who spent the prior three years at Stephen F. Austin. The Lumberjacks knocked the Mountaineers out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round in March. Underwood and WVU coach Bob Huggins have known one another since the late 1980s, when Underwood was a junior college coach in Florida and Huggins was in the area either recruiting or spending time at his New Smyrna Beach condo.

When Huggins was putting together a staff at Kansas State in 2006, it was a “no-brainer” to bring aboard Underwood, who was making a name as a fast-riser with a bunch of connections. Huggins saw Underwood as a tailored fit for the basketball operations job, because Underwood was also a former Kansas State player, and he knew the place and its people better than anyone else Huggins trusted.

Their friendship is pretty typical for the ones Huggins has with so many former assistants and players — or just friends in general — but some of the roots are pretty hilarious. Take this anecdote as the very best example.

That’s one of the very best Huggins stories I’ve heard through the years, and he loves telling it. These two really like one another. It’s apparent. Perhaps not surprisingly, their teams are statistically similar this season.

The Cowboys are No. 3 in points per game (93.3) and the Mountaineers are No. 5 (91.8). Underwood’s team mirrors WVU in other ways, too. Oklahoma State (10-2) is No. 3 in turnovers forced, No. 4 in steals and offensive rebounds per game and No. 5 turnover margin. WVU (11-1) ranks higher in each category, leading the nation in turnovers forced, steals per game and turnover margin and ranking No. 2 in offensive rebounds per game.

Takes one to know one, right? That was one reason the the Lumberjacks were so good in the first-round game. They had ball-handlers at every position, which helped, but they were well-versed on what to expect.

“We were three years in at SFA, so their physicality and toughness didn’t impact us maybe as much as it did some other teams,” Underwood said. “We’ve got to do a better job with our current program of letting them know what you’re going to get when you play a Huggs team.

“You can’t let them rebound it, you can’t let them get easy baskets and you can’t turn it over.”