You are looking live at Bob Huggins from yesterday’s media session. You may or may not listen to it in full, but if you do, I need you yo corroborate this with me: How many times does Huggins seemingly go out of his way to mention “the cylinder?” I think we know why he’s doing it. We probably know for whom he’s doing it, too. If you’re not sure, go to the comments. I’m guessing you can find the answer, and I’m certain you can ask for and receive it. (Aside: Esa Ahmad is an acceptable answer, too. He’s picked up a few offensive fouls lately for leaving the cylinder and nudging a defender, and Huggins has had to ask for that to be called on both ends.)

Curtis Shaw, the Big 12’s officiating coordinator, explained the cylinder at the Big 12 media day in October. You can anticipate and probably even understand West Virginia’s response to this. Remember, the Mountaineers had their brows arched the prior two years by officiating memos that went out and sure seemed to single out what they liked to do defensively — and from where did those points originate? (I say that because the same memos would highlight traveling out of traps … and from where did that advice come?)

This is all sort of unspoken and at the same time understood, but for as long as I’ve been within the Big 12’s cylinder, I’ve witnessed this, I don’t know, paranoia that teams cannot get a fair shake against Kansas. Most of that is based in officiating. You can build a quality parody account upon curious calls that favor the Jayhawks. What’s that? You have?

Focusing on bias or fouls cheapens what Kansas has done for a dozen years now, cheapens Bill Self, cheapens what the Mountaineers have done to beat the Jayhawks three times. So I’m not doing that. I took a look at how or why WVU has a three-game winning streak in the series here and was surprised to find two things.

1. WVU’s not the most successful team against Kansas the past three years. Oklahoma State also has three straight home wins against Kansas. Iowa State has four wins — two at home and two in the Big 12 tournament. (Kansas won at home against the Cowboys and ended a two-game losing streak at Iowa State already this month.)
2. The Mountaineers haven’t really done anything extraordinary or out of character. It really has been Do What You Do stuff.

Though it may seem the Mountaineers (15-4, 4-3) need something special to avoid the first three-game losing streak since February 2014, they haven’t really done anything special to win three straight at home against the Jayhawks. When WVU has won, Kansas has had issues with shooting, rebounding and clean play.

That’s what opponents commonly encounter against the Mountaineers and especially since Huggins introduced the press two years ago.

In the three home wins, WVU hasn’t let Kansas shoot 50 percent once, but only 56 teams have done that in 330 games against Huggins. The Jayhawks were outrebounded in all three losses and two of the four wins, but WVU has outrebounded 197 opponents under Huggins and won 158 of those games.

But since free throws seem to be a part of every WVU win or loss now, and since foul trouble and foul disparity was difficult to ignore Saturday, let’s address this: The Mountaineers can’t foul Kansas tonight and hand out free points and expect to win.

In the three wins at the Coliseum, WVU has done well to complicate shooting, rebounding and simple possession. The Jayhawks have committed 20 more fouls at the Coliseum the past three years than they have at Allen Fieldhouse. Free throws? They’re 13-for-21, 7-for-11 and 22-for-32 in the past three visits here. In the three road games, they’re 22-for-27, 34-for-43 and 23-for-34. That’s 42-for-65 on the road and 79-for-104 in home games. (The Big 12 tournament game was rather even.)