West Virginia is five games into Big 12 play and has already done battle with Jo Lual-Acquil and Vlad Brodzianski, the conference’s top two shot-blockers.

Neither could touch the Mountaineers.

Tonight, WVU plays host to Oklahoma, a team that should be taken a little more seriously than the record suggests — I’ll explain later in the game post. But the Sooners boast Khadeem Lattin, who beat WVU with a tip-in last year that propelled his side to the No. 1 ranking, and he’s No. 3 in the Big 12 in blocked shots per game. The Mountaineers are still not great shooters, and the goal of the motion offense is to try and get a lot of the offense at the rim.

Conversely, WVU freshman Sagaba Konate is seventh and ranks No. 89 in the country in blocks per game. He has more blocks in 17 career games then Devin Williams had in 102. He’s been changing games, and Oklahoma has an oddly high number of shots blocked — 4.4 per game, which ranks No. 311 nationally.

The Mountaineers press and trap and steal but they now have this added element in the third year of the full-court attack. They’re already nearly past the number of blocks the previous two years. But here’s the best part, and it’s classic WVU — teams rely on blocked shots less and less every year now.

No matter the source — and WVU has many — these are often momentum busters and momentum builders for a team was already using pressure, traps and steals to stun opponents and start runs.

It’s an increasingly important part of WVU’s game in an era that relies less and less every year on blocked shots. Last season, Washington led the nation with 6.5 per game, the lowest No. 1 average since Texas averaged the same in 1998 and more than a full block less than the top average the prior five years.

Huggins believes it’s a reflection of the way the sport has evolved in recent years, when spacing is an emphasis and small forwards and power forwards are point-forwards and stretch-forwards who play outside-in and bring tall defenders with them.

“Nobody goes inside the 3-point line anymore,” Huggins said. “It’s like they’ve got a dog collar on and they’ll get shocked if they get inside the 3. Nobody wants to play around the goal anymore. Everyone wants to play out on the perimeter.”