"It's about us. We just take it one game at a time. You can't win the next game if you don't win the current game." – Jevon Carter pic.twitter.com/7W9AU5swCJ

— WVU Men's Basketball (@WVUhoops) March 10, 2017

You are looking live at what is certainly the team’s mantra for this postseason. Those are Jevon Carter’s words, but everyone in the locker room last night said something to that effect about the tournament, about Kansas being eliminated, about NCAA seeding, so on and so forth. It’s a prolonged synonym for, “Do what you do.” This is the light that will lead West Virginia as far as it goes.

Tonight, it takes the Mountaineers, ranked No. 11 nationally and seeded No. 2 here, into the semifinal and again into a tournament game against the team they did not anticipate playing. It’s Kansas State, 5-8 in its past 13 games but on a three-game winning streak. The No. 6 seed surprised the No. 3 seed, Baylor, in Thursday’s late quarterfinal.

WVU and K-State have met twice, and there’s a distinction to each game. WVU’s loss in Manhattan, Kansas, was one of the three times WVU lost a game it led by double digits. WVU’s win at the Coliseum a few weeks later was by 19 points. That was the second-best margin of defeat in conference play, trailing the 21-point win the Mountaineers earned at home against then-No. 1 Baylor.

Two keys — and they couldn’t be more disparate:

1. Paint points: WVU was outscored 40-28 in the paint in the Octagon of Doom and then outscored K-State 50-18 at the Coliseum. There’s an asterisk in there. D.J. Johnson, K-State’s 6-foot-8, 250-pound presence, played in the first game and missed the second game. The Mountaineers were determined to make layups and 1-footers, but they also kept the Wildcats from scoring on and after drives. Wes Iwundu and Kam Stokes can get inside, and in addition to Johnson, Isaiah Maurice can catch and score inside.
2. 3-point points: WVU only took 12 3-point shots in the Johnson-less game. Lowest total of the season, so that’s not the norm and probably not the way to go. Or is it? WVU took 13 last night, and that’s maybe a trend? Since shooting 24 in back-to-back games, the Mountaineers have now shot 14, 15, 19 and 13 in the past four games. K-State’s not a prolific 3-point team (10 or more makes just four times in 32 games, ranks of No. 182 in makes, No. 227 in attempts and No. 112 in accuracy), but Barry Brown was 4-for-4 last night and Dean Wade is due. If WVU can get inside, that opens the outside. The offense, when it was working last night, moved the ball with the dribble and the pass, and that created open shots for, among others, Jevon Carter, who seems to like this building and has made 16 of his 32 3-point attempts here.

And that’s about all the previewing for this one. Certainly, there are other areas on which to focus. We’ve got some time, so I’m nevertheless curious what you’d circle and track tonight.