This is an odd time for West Virginia, a team that, if nothing else after 31 games, is used to playing games. Practices have long been arduous chores under Bob Huggins, and though they’re lighter now, figure he’ll ratchet things up a click or two during the idle time before the postseason. The Mountaineers, after all, are in the unusual spot of getting a break in or perhaps even from the schedule. They were off Saturday while the rest of the conference(save Iowa State) played, and they’re off Wednesday when their quarterfinal opponent is playing for the right to face WVU’s press on short notice.

Sounds good, until you remember passivity spooks Bob Huggins.

From the WVU v. Texas live post earlier this month:

“When we won the Big East Tournament, we took two days off, and when we came back I didn’t think we were ever the same,” he said … of the Final Four team! “We were so used to playing the game and kind of having a lighter practice and practicing and playing another game. We were in such a routine that I think just the break in the routine hurt us a little bit. I didn’t think we had the same kind of pop we did before.”

This is five days without a game. This is new. Will WVU be unusual (in one way or another)?

There are two benefits related to personnel. One is rest. One is preparation. One is good for Dax Miles. Both are good for Esa Ahmad.

Miles set a season high and matched a career high with 23 points against Iowa State. Esa Ahmad returned from a three-game absence and played a lesser role off the bench. Without Ahmad, the team’s second-leading scorer, WVU had two of its three worst shooting and scoring days of the season in a win at TCU and a loss at Baylor. With Miles rebounding and scoring Friday, the Mountaineers scored more points than they did in 15 other Big 12 games.

WVU gets points from all over its roster. Seven players led the team in scoring in the regular season. Twelve players had at least 10 points in a game. There were only 14 instances in 31 games when one player had 20 or more points. Miles had four of them. Ahmad had two, and his 27 points in a home win against Kansas was the highest total by a WVU player this season.

In short, Peak WVU needs both, and if Miles went from down here to up here by spending a lot of time in the gym between Baylor and Iowa State, there’s a reasonable expectation he spends time in the gym now and hovers around that level of effectiveness. We just don’t know, because how many times are we going to fit a crown for Miles and watch something but a coronation follow?

Perhaps that’s unfair. This is more oligarchy than monarchy, of course, and nobody needs or wants to see someone gunning for his numbers. But getting Miles to play hard and make free throws would be welcome, and practice and film can build and reinforce.

Ahmad simply has to practice so that he can play more and play better. It’s hard to knock is performance Friday because he’d practiced twice, and probably not all that well, since missing the win against Texas on Feb. 18. He now has a few opportunities to tune himself up before the tournament.

The 6-foot-8 Ahmad, averaging 11.7 points, was 1 for 6 from the floor and 3 for 4 at the free-throw line and had five points and three rebounds in 11 minutes. It was the first time in his 62 career games he did not start, and Huggins said Ahmad was rusty. By tip time Thursday, he’ll have played once in 18 days.

“We’ve got to get Esa going,” Huggins said. “We’re a whole lot better with Esa. He gives us another rebounder. He gives us another straight-line driver. We’ve got to get him going, but he’s got to help. He’s got to get himself going.”

There’s also a drawback, in addition to the potential rust, involved with this break. WVU doesn’t know what team it’ll face … and if you go back through recent tournament play, it seems WVU never gets the team it thinks it’ll get. Regular-season and postseason tournaments. Even this year, Florida State was better than Temple, and Temple beat the Seminoles and then the Mountaineers in Brooklyn. Last year, TCU snapped a seven-game losing streak and beat Texas Tech in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, and WVU was prepping for the Red Raiders. This year, Texas is abysmal and has a seven-game losing streak. The Red Raiders are the better team, but they haven’t been right since leaving their luggage on the roof in the Coliseum parking lot last month.

So WVU pins the tail on the donkey for a few days and gets the identity of its opponent on short notice … but the Mountaineers still have the marked advantage.

“I remember being a pressing team at VCU and having a really good feeling knowing those two teams had to play the night before and were beating up on each other and wearing each other out and knowing we were going to be able to come in a with a level of freshness,” second-year Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “And that’s a real mental advantage. That’s a reward for the regular season that West Virginia had.”

The Big 12 has had a 10-team field and made the No. 7 seed play the No. 10 and the No. 8 play the No. 9 since the 2012 tournament. The winners on the first day are 1-9 on the second day, and the nine losses have come by an average of 14 points. Six were decided by more than 15 points and three were decided by seven or less.