It seems that every game that involves West Virginia, and especially games against foes foreign to the Mountaineers and what they do, involves a chat about turnovers.

This occasion is not immune, though the intersection of WVU’s defense and Gonzaga’s season is intriguing.

WVU forces turnovers more frequently than anyone in the country — and needs them to prop up and/or propel the offense — and opponents have to prepare for and then settle in against the ferocity of the press.

The Sweet Sixteen game is no different, and Gonzaga did splinter a bit in the second half Saturday to provide a preview for Thursday.

Gonzaga is awfully good at a lot of things — the field-goal percentage defense and the defensive rebounds per game are immediate concerns, because opponents miss shots and don’t grab rebounds, which means the Mountaineers will need turnovers for extra scoring opportinities — and the Bulldogs aren’t necessarily vulnerable to pressure.

If anything, they’re used to it.

“We had pressure all year long,” said guard Nigel Williams-Goss, a transfer from Washington who sat out last season and leads the team in scoring this season. “We were undefeated, and we didn’t feel any of that.”

Gonzaga is 34-1, and it continues to climb to and succeed in new altitudes. Long ago, Gonzaga was a Cinderella success story as a mid-major program. This is the 19th straight NCAA tournament appearance and the ninth year in a row the Bulldogs have won a game. They’re the top-rated team in calculations belonging to both Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin, and those are two of the tools the NCAA tournament’s selection committee uses to select and rank teams.

And this season, Gonzaga started off 29-0 and lost the final regular-season game at home to BYU.

“I’ve been blessed to have great groups of guys and great teams, but these guys really haven’t had a bad night,” coach Mark Few said. “They’ve been really, really focused. We had a bad 10-minute stretch against BYU, but we also came out at the start of the game and led 20-4. We were ready to go.”

I know, I know: Mike Tyson. We’ve heard and read this all before. It’s nevertheless a talking point, one, of course, of many.

But what are those?

Come back later for a football topic!