Bob Huggins was not happy about it either, because WVU has another road game on Jan. 3. A day earlier? Two days? The Mountaineers stay in CST.

“We can’t stay out here that long,” he said after Friday’s win. “The deal is they’re supposed to be helping us. That’s not helping us.”

The Mountaineers get on a plane again Monday so they can play Tuesday night at Texas Tech. This is old and new. Ordinarily, the Big 12 lets WVU open Big 12 play with a Saturday-Monday road trip to get two games out of the way in one trip before the spring semester begins.

This, though, would have been a Friday-Tuesday, and Huggins wasn’t going to do five nights — and really, it’s six — on the road.

“I can’t have them laying around out here and then go to Lubbock and then have them lay around there,” Huggins said. “If they lay around, they get — they have no energy. We’ve got to keep them active.”

Huggins figured he couldn’t do that if he flew Friday night or Saturday and then had three days on his hands. Texas Tech’s women’s team plays Monday, so there arw walk-throughs and a game Monday to plan around. There wouldn’t have been a lot of convenient free time in the gym.

So he was headed home Friday and then to Lubbock Monday and back again Tuesday night — or more acurately, early the next morning. That’s the part about the arrangement that really bugs him.

“That’s not helping us,” he said. “What they did this year, that’s not helping us. And it’s expensive. I keep turning on the TV, and every time I turn it on I hear the announcers on TV saying, ‘We’re not looking forward to that long trip to Morgantown and getting back late.’

“We do it nine times. Nine times. I keep saying to the league office, ‘Why can’t we go out and play two games (on one trip) before school starts?'”

Well, first off, read a newspaper. Or a blog. They’re great, and the authors know those woes. Secondly, yeah. What was wrong with what the Big 12 provided the last three years?

Huggins acknowledged some relief. The spring semester starts Jan. 9. His players aren’t missing school with these back-to-back road games in quick succession. Yet he wasn’t pleased.

“But we’re going to go to Lubbock and play at 9:15,” he said. “We’re going to get home at a quarter-to-6 or 6 o’clock in the morning. Don’t tell me that’s for the betterment of the student-athletes.

“And we’re on ESPN News.”