MORGANTOWN - West Virginia University's coaches knew.
They knew Oklahoma State's basketball team had followed a six-game losing streak with a four-game winning streak heading into Saturday's Big 12 contest at the Coliseum.
More importantly, though, they knew the Cowboys had changed the way they'd been defending. OSU had begun packing it in instead of using its pressure defense.
The question then was could WVU score versus Oklahoma State's new pack line D?
The answer was, well, for a half. The wrong half, however, for the Mountaineers. After shooting 61.5 percent in the first half, West Virginia shot 35.7 in the second half. WVU's zone offense again came into question. Thirty-three overall attempted treys is not the prescription for Mountaineer success.
More shockingly, though, was West Virginia's porous defense. Credit OSU. Give coach Brad Underwood yet another salute for foiling his old boss, WVU's Bob Huggins. But the Cowboys feasted via the drive-thru lanes. They finished with 32 points in the paint to WVU's 22. In addition, they outrebounded the hosts 30-16.
No one saw that coming.
"It's not very often you're going to look at a stat sheet and see a Bob Huggins team outrebounded 30-16," said Underwood. "That was a big, big factor."
"It's effort," said Mountaineer forward Nate Adrian afterward. "There's not much you can really say about it."
Indeed. Understand, it wasn't a shocking WVU loss. Not after other head-scratchers like against Temple or to Oklahoma at home. This team can absolutely win or lose on any given day.
It was, however, another proverbial punch to the team's gut.
Once again West Virginia was given national respect. Once again it climbed to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll. And once again it doubled over.
With a twist, though, this time. Both Kansas and Baylor had shockingly lost at home. It was the first time in the AP poll history two of the top three teams fell at home to unranked teams. Had the Mountaineers won, why, hello Big 12 title race!
Also, look at Saturday's scores. Not only did No. 2 Baylor and No. 3 Kansas lose, but likewise No. 5 Arizona. A top five ranking was there for the taking. And WVU gave.
"Devastated," said WVU's Elijah Macon of the locker room afterward. "We weren't supposed to lose this one. I feel we needed this game. It was a home game. I heard some other teams lost, so this would have been big had we won."
Yep. But some of the Mountaineers' main cogs didn't show. Esa Ahmad missed all three of his shots. Dax Miles had four points. Jevon Carter had nine points on 4-of-10 shooting. Sagaba Konate had two points.
"We had zero rebounds from our bigs at the three [small forward] position," said Huggins. "Zero."
Underwood made the stat a point of emphasis after his team's 92-75 loss to WVU earlier in the season in Stillwater.
"We gave up 50 points in the paint in the first game," he said. "We never gave ourselves a chance when you combine that with our effort. That game was over before the 10-minute mark of the first half. Keeping them out of the paint was something we felt we had to do. Also, we did a much better job of making them shoot contested 3s."
What was more important is OSU made WVU shoot so many 3-pointers. The result: an 82-75 win in Morgantown.
"They packed it in and tried to make us shoot, which we did when we shouldn't have," Adrian said. "We should have taken the ball to the basket more."
"At times we were doing good," Macon said. "We ran some plays they couldn't stop. Then we got away from it. We shot 33 3s today. That's a big thing to me. That's not us. We like to get physical; we like to get in the paint. When I heard we shot 33 3s, that kind of disappointed me. That's not us."
Indeed, the onus was placed on a freshman, Lamont West, to win the game. He almost did with 21 points on 6-of-12 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc, including a four-point play.
"I was just hitting and I just kept shooting," West said.
As Macon said, though, that's not the Mountaineers. Ditto the effort, or lack thereof on Saturday.
"We just didn't come prepared," Macon said. "It was a tough one."
Perhaps West, however, summed up WVU's effort best. He did so efficiently. He did so with a one-word answer.
West was simply asked if the Mountaineers were mentally prepared for Oklahoma State.
"No," was the complete answer.
Because nothing more needed to be said.
Contact Mitch Vingle at 304-348-4827 or mitchvingle@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @MitchVingle.