Where would you like to begin this morning? Another basketball loss at home? Coaching news about who’s coming and seemingly not going? Because I have both.

Let’s start with basketball, because the highlights are at the top. No. 7 West Virginia is 3-2 at home and 3-2 on the road in Big 12 play now after losing to Oklahoma State. WVU, which is (just?) 3-0 against ranked teams, now counts all five losses to unranked teams. (Aside: Is Oklahoma State is the first team to beat WVU and also be a legitimate at-large NCAA tournament team? Temple, Texas Tech and Oklahoma are not. Is K-State? Bruce Weber was on a seat that was warming up before yesterday. It’s interesting.)

The Cowboys, who started 10-2 and then went 0-6 to begin Big 12 play, have now won five in a row with four conference wins and an SEC/Big 12 Challenge demolition of Arkansas. They’re now above WVU in the RPI (29 over 34), and rightfully so. Pretty much did what they wanted to do on the road.

WVU had three keys:

1. Do not foul: Oklahoma State is prodigious at the free-throw line
2. Battle on the boards: The Cowboys were roughing up opponents on the glass
3. Respect the 3-point shot: 47-for-99 from deep in the prior four games

The Mountaineers fouled a lot, and Oklahoma State made its free throws, and both were particularly true in the second half. WVU got outrebounded 30-16 and had more people play and not get a rebound (six) that get a rebound (five). Only once before has WVU ever had fewer rebounds in a game. The Cowboys were 8-for-13 from 3-point range, and there were a bunch of times when a rotation just didn’t happen and the defense left a shooter wide the heck open.

So, 0-for-3, and a massive wasted opportunity to actually be in control of the Big 12 race.

The coaches made the players aware of the events within the Big 12 before the opening tip, and WVU responded by trailing 12-2 minutes into the game. The Mountaineers are now tied for third place with Iowa State.

“How could you not have enthusiasm?” coach Bob Huggins said. “You spend all that time preparing for this. They knew Kansas lost. They knew Baylor lost. They knew this was a huge game for us and could put us right back in the hunt. Why would you not embrace that? I think that’s crap.

“A lack of focus? Not practicing hard? That’s their fault.”

WVU remains a game behind Baylor in the Big 12 standings and two games behind Kansas. The Mountaineers beat both at the Coliseum already this season and have road games left against each.

The Cowboys, who were 10-2 before the start of Big 12 play and then lost their first six conference games, won their fifth straight game by shooting 62.5 percent (25 for 40) from the floor — by far the highest against the Mountaineers this season — and making 24 of 27 free throws, including 18 of 20 after halftime.

Jeffrey Carroll had 20 points for the Cowboys and scored 13 in a row at one point in the first half. Jawun Evans had 18 on 6-for-7 shooting and Phil Forte scored all 13 of his in the second half.

“All in all, very pleased,” coach Brad Underwood said. “It was a great road win against arguably one of the top five teams in the country.”

(If you’re curious about the technical foul, Huggins said he lost balance, leaned too far backward and fell. Sounded like an accident, except that official Kip Kissinger didn’t believe it. “He said I did it on purpose,” Huggins said.)

The “massive wasted opportunity” came about because No. 2 Baylor and No. 3 Kansas both lost at home earlier in the day. A Mountaineers win would have pulled them even with Baylor in the Big 12 standings and a game back of Kansas with games left on the road against both. There was room in the top five of the polls, too.

By no means did WVU lose the Big 12 title Saturday. I’m not even sure its fair to say WVU lost sight of the title. But it became a little harder, and that’s the dagger, because the team had put itself in position to pounce on a break … and that did not happen.

Who’s to say Kansas can’t lose again, or that the roster won’t look different before long? WVU can break any tie with Baylor by winning there later this month. It’s not over, but there’s the matter of quizzical Iowa State and now Oklahoma State and seeding in the Big 12 tournament. It would seem clear now that WVU’s entirely capable of winning three in a row and losing two straight, that it can’t muster up the effort and energy it needs at all times. Not quite good enough to play five or six good games in succession, regardless of outcomes. That’s dicey before tournament play, never mind within tournament play.

I don’t know. This team seems to like to make things difficult. It doesn’t handle highs. It deals well with hardships. This was all probably self-fulfilling, but Huggins did sound a little spent and almost resigned to certain realities. Can you name that 50-percent shooter?

Now, football coaches: Tony Dews is the newest addition to the coaching staff — and this did not take long, so the JaJuan Seider deal was at least in the hangar for a while. Dews was at Arizona since 2012. He’s worked with defensive coordinator Tony Gibson for a long time at a few different places, and Dews is now the third former Wildcats assistant on the staff. He had, I suppose, mixed results in the Pac-12.

Here’s the weird part: He’s never coached running backs. I’ve seen subsequent reports Dews is the receivers coach. I had someone tell me later that Dews is “not moving to coach a new position.” So I hedged with my reporting. WVU has a receivers coach, but Tyron Carrier is one of the five remaining assistants with an expiring contract (Carrier, defensive line coach Bruce Tall, cornerbacks coach Blue Adams, safeties coach Matt Caponi, defensive assistant/special teams coach Mark Scott).

This could mean different things, and speculating seems needless. I bet we get details before long, but those details could either end or develop this story.

Speaking of Adams, I’ll reset here what I said in the game post yesterday.

Let me throw the Blue Adams update here: It was reported earlier today Adams is leaving WVU to join the USF staff … which lost its cornerbacks coach to Florida this morning. (Gators again!) A handful or organizations have published stories citing the one report.

I’m not going to tell you that it’s not true, but I can’t tell you that it is true. I can tell you that I’ve talked to people who’ve talked to Adams — something we’ve not been able to do ourselves — and he has told them it’s not true. “It’s not true unless he’s lying,” is what I was told.

Now … is Adams a candidate? Perhaps. A target? Perhaps. Is it true and Adams is “lying?” Perhaps. Is it not true at this moment but could be true in an hour or a day or a week? Perhaps. I can only tell you what I’ve told you.

As I type this Sunday morning, nothing has changed.