A tip of the cap to the person who put together these highlights, and a note about West Virginia’s Wednesday night: It was long.

First there was the game. Then there was the travel.

I was talking to Bob Huggins as he made his way out of the Lloyd Noble Center. It was 11:17 p.m. CST, and he was still a couple of minutes from reaching the team bus. WVU trekked from Norman to Oklahoma City, which takes about an hour, and then flew to Pittsburgh. because the Clarksburg airport was closed because of the snow. So the team landed in Pittsburgh at 2:55 a.m., and from there the drive to campus is, eh, not quite twice as long as it is from Clarksburg. The Mountaineers rolled into the Coliseum at around 4:30 a.m.

But Baylor v. Oklahoma State had to be the early game.

Huggins wasn’t sure how much the team would be able to do today, and WVU didn’t do as much as normal in practice before Wednesday’s game. He said the team spent about as much time on the floor as it did in the film room. The opponent Saturday is Kansas State, which played Monday. Then the Mountaineers play Monday night at Kansas.

One more time: The five-game stretch that started at Iowa State and hit the middle at Oklahoma is going to shape this season.

As for the game, it was sort of up WVU’s alley. It was exceedingly familiar, but it demanded something of the Mountaineers that they had not had. They won in spite of their offense and had to ugly it up, to create the chaos and then succeed within it. It wasn’t easy, but few things are, and WVU again made the game hard and seemed to like that.

“All we had to do was play harder in the second half,” forward Nate Adrian said. “It was a physical game, which we don’t mind.”

Ahmad, scoreless in the last game, had eight points in the final 10:05 and finished with nine. Adrian scored nine of his 13 points after halftime, and that was timely for both because Bolden had just two of his 17 points in the second half. Sagaba Konate had two points, four rebounds and five blocked shots.

Kameron McGusty and Jordan Shepherd both had 11 points for the Sooners. Jordan Woodard, who had 20 points in the win against the Mountaineers, finished with six on 2-for-11 shooting.

The Mountaineers shot 37 percent and Oklahoma shot 33, and the teams combined for 37 turnovers and 36 baskets. WVU forced 23 turnovers Wednesday after just 12 in the loss last month, and that helped the Mountaineers jump from 15 points off turnovers in the first game to 27 in the second.

“Honestly,” Huggins said, “I think it was that attitude that we’re going to take some pride in being a hell of a defensive team again.”

Oklahoma scored 50 points, which matches the season-low for any team in Big 12 play. The Sooners also scored 50 in a loss to Baylor. It’s the lowest Big 12 point total against WVU this season the second-lowest total ever by a Big 12 opponent. TCU had 42 last year and 50 twice in 2013. Oklahoma made eight baskets in each half. Went from 12 turnovers in Morgantown to 23 at home. From 23 dunks and layups last month to six Wendesday.

Not pretty, but thanks to Beetle Bolden, Sagaba Konate, Nathan Adrian of course and even Esa Ahmad, it’s not bad.