MORGANTOWN - The easy and obvious question to ask now that No. 11 West Virginia has beaten No. 1 Kansas is what's next for the Mountaineers?
The answer is easy and obvious, too.
"We've go to play Oklahoma Saturday," forward Jon Holton said after escaping the party on the floor that followed the 74-63 win against the Jayhawks.
Oklahoma is ranked No. 2 and is good enough to hold on to that spot this week despite a three-point, triple-overtime loss to top-ranked Kansas last week. Complicating matters for the Mountaineers is that the Sooners know a win at home pushes them to the top spot.
WVU knows - well, that's actually interesting. What did they learn from beating Kansas?
Had they not won the past two games against the Jayhawks at the Coliseum? Wouldn't they have won shorthanded at Allen Fieldhouse last season if they merely made some free throws late in regulation of the overtime loss?
Didn't they feel as though they were better than the 11th-best team in the country, that they would have been ranked higher Tuesday if they weren't somehow omitted from the preseason Top 25?
So what is next? What awaits a team that, quite honestly, did not surprise itself Tuesday night?
"This is a group that's been together for going on two years now," forward Devin Williams said. "I don't want to get too high or too cocky or whatever you want to call it, but the sky is the limit. The sky is definitely the limit. It's a matter of us believing."
But the Mountaineers (15-1, 4-0 Big 12) have been reaching for the sky, almost from the instant last season ended in the Sweet 16, and they didn't need validation. They simply earned it, or stole it, if you will, at the expense of a team that's won or shared the Big 12 the past 11 seasons and has the roster and the coach to add to that this season.
The two meet again in 26 days.
Casazza blog: Marquee moment in Kansas win? Somone handed Jon Holton a kid
"I think if we just talked about how poorly we played we take away the credit that West Virginia deserves for really getting after us and for causing us to play that way," Kansas coach Bill Self said.
So don't downplay the accomplishment. It had been 33 years since WVU beat a No. 1 team, after all, and WVU coach Bob Huggins had never played host to a top-ranked team before. The evening mattered, and not just for memories of rushing the court and singing with players.
Given how good the Mountaineers looked against No. 1, when they led for 33 minutes, 43 seconds, it's understandable why some might look ahead. Some, though not the Mountaineers, despite the best efforts and the best intentions from ESPN's sideline reporter.
"Holly Rowe said to Devin and I after the game, 'You're 4-0 in the league. How about winning the league?' " Huggins relayed. "I said, 'Holly, you do understand there are 14 more games to play in the league. Fourteen more hard games."
There are, but why can't the Mountaineers win the Big 12? If they don't miss those free throws at Kansas last season, they share the title. This team is better than that team, and this team, if nothing else, has put itself in a preliminary position to contend and to fend off contenders.
The Mountaineers have a head-to-head advantage against conference royalty. A win Saturday puts WVU two games ahead of the Sooners in the conference standings. Oklahoma visits the Mountaineers Feb. 20, three days after playing an 8 p.m. game at Texas Tech, the same turnaround the Jayhawks just endeavored.
No one's forecasting an undefeated finish, and WVU's going to have a night or multiple nights when it can't conjure the energy it had and needed to beat Kansas, when it gets the highest level of intensity the opponent possesses. But thanks to a variety of strengths and contributors, the Mountaineers are going to win some of those games, and they're going to be the better team on many nights.
Yet they knew that already. Four days ago, Williams spoke to his teammates in the locker room, Oklahoma State in their rear-view mirror, Kansas in their sights. He told them anything they wanted was attainable, and a few teammates laughed at Williams for using a word they'd never heard him use before.
"He's like a preacher," Holton said. "He'll get going, and it sounds real. He makes you a believer."
Now the word rolls off their tongues, a mantra as they make their move for March by climbing the polls, rising in the RPI and securing cozy seeding for the NCAA Tournament.
"All I can say is it is attainable," Williams said. "Everyone in the top five has earned it. We're just trying to get what's ours."