I don’t know what to tell you about what we witnessed last night. It was, truly, unbelievable. To be honest with you, I need to watch it – at least the final eight minutes of the 45 – again, which is to say for the first time. I’ve seen West Virginia do what it did a bunch this season, and I never saw that coming. Not with a 14-point lead and 2:58 on the clock. It was surreal. Should have never happened, either, but it did, and WVU’s greatest enemy was, as it so often is, itself.

The Mountaineers followed the script for how to lose a game they had no business – none – losing.

We’re 26 games and a few head-scratchers in now, but let’s be honest: The Mountaineers are probably ultimately defined by these next five games. I’m the advocate of “You are who you are,” and that might be apt here, but I still think WVU is in possession of an uncertain identity.

It does seem like the profile is in between a team that beats Kansas and Baylor and a team that loses to Oklahoma and Temple. But WVU also seems entirely capable of being one extreme and not the other, and that may be what’s in the balance. Can it elevate and position itself to be the former, or does it spiral to the latter? Five games, folks, and zero momentum with Texas Tech on the way.

Monday’s conclusion was just stupendous. WVU was hammering Kansas. Up 10-0 early and then 11 points later. Shook off a rally and led by seven points at halftime and then by 10 and by 12 and finally by 14 in the second half. The Mountaineers were doing things that don’t happen in Allen Fieldhouse, and then everything went bonkers. Kansas pressed, and the Mountaineers couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t inbound the ball. WVU backed off its press and played slowly on offense, and though neither is a bad tactic in that situation, neither was executed properly, either.

In the final 2:58 of regulation, WVU had four turnovers and sent Kansas to the line four times for 8-for-8 shooting.

Circumstance got to WVU, too. Jevon Carter’s hurting, and a bad knee kept him not only from scoring at all in the second half but from playing point in the clutch. You’d like to think the turnovers are mitigated with him in control, but he was on the floor late. Dax Miles went 0-for-2 at the foul line, which couldn’t have been a surprise, and Bob Huggins didn’t seem interested in letting that happen again. Beetle Bolden and Tarik Phillip thus played more, and Phillip lacked poise and control late with early offense, a horrendous decision to pass to no one rather than call a timeout and then the 3-point attempt at the end of regulation with pretty much the entire bench begging him to drive and then wondering why he didn’t.

Everything the Mountaineers were for the first 37:02, they were not for the final 7:58 … unless this is exactly who they’re fated to be.

“We weren’t taking care of the ball like we know how,” said Adrian, who was inbounding the ball through much of the difficulty. “We press ourselves every day. It shouldn’t have been a problem. That’s on us, and mainly me. I should have called timeout.”

Kansas made its first three shots of overtime, including a pair of 3s from Graham, and the 79-71 lead was its largest of the game. WVU’s answer was a missed shot and three straight turnovers

“Remarkable,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “That’s a toughness win. There certainly wasn’t much going right, and they had everything going right.”

Mason led all scorers with 24 points, but he was 3-for-13 from the floor and 16-for-18 at the foul line, where Kansas was 33-for-44. Graham added 18 points. Josh Jackson and Lagerald Vick both had 14. Ahmad, who scored 27 points in the win against Kansas last month, had 20. Phillip added 18, Jevon Carter had 11 and Adrian added 10.

WVU was 20-for-29 at the line, and that comparison didn’t compute with Huggins.

“You can’t put them at the line (44) times,” he said. “If they’re not fouling us on purpose late, that free throw disparity would have been much worse.”

There’s plenty to discuss, but I do feel like I need to follow your lead until I get to watch the game again and also for the first time.