They moved the ball with pep, their guards attacked relentlessly, and forward Esa Ahmad had the game of his life.
"I think the old adage you cut off the head to kill the monster is still probably apropos", he said.
The No. 18 Mountaineers ran away from the visiting second-ranked Jayhawks in Morgantown, W.V., en route to a cozy 85-69 win.
The No. 2-ranked Jayhawks (18-2, 7-1 Big 12) dropped their fourth consecutive game in Morgantown, spanning four seasons.
In the third quarter, Baylor started to dominate the Mountaineers by winning the quarter scoring differential 23-18, extending the total score to 63-52 after three quarters.
"All we can do is stick together", Ahmad said.
"We're all for each other in the locker room", Lightfoot said after the game. Two of those chances come Tuesday and again on February 13 when the teams meet in Lawrence, Kansas, where the Jayhawks have 50 straight home wins.
"When we were in the Final Four (in 2010), they pumped the game on radio into the mines", Huggins said. I feel like that can happen now and we just need to play our butts off and defend. It is so vaunted on that side of the ball because it stops opponents from getting shots altogether, not because it makes opponents miss shots at an inordinately high rate. "He's gotta get more than four rebounds in a big-boy game like that, especially when Landen's out with foul trouble".
The Mountaineers would push the lead to nine points but five straight by the Jayhawks in a hurry tightened the game back up as the score sat at 48-43 with over 15-minutes left in the game.
Josh Jackson had 22 points and Devonté Graham 17 for KU.
"One, he's the ultimate team guy and really he's the most valuable guy on their team".
"We've gotta be tougher down the stretch and we've gotta come together as a team", he said. "You can't turn it over".
His upbringing gave him an appreciation for factory workers and those who emerge from a long, cramped day of underground labor with soot-blackened blue collars, so instead of merely talking about coal miners to his players, he took the lesson a great deal deeper than that. "You just have to fight through it".
Woodard tied it with a basket with three seconds to go.
The he saw Ahmad cutting down the middle. "So, that's what I'm going to do".
"It was nearly like he tried to get it back after he threw it".
Ahmad laid it in, giving WVU a 42-35 lead.
"If you're looking at the stats you're saying, 'Yeah, that's not terrible, ' " Self said, "but it doesn't really tell the story".
The breakout game could not have come at a better time.
Huggins expects few slipups from Kansas this time.
"After we had a continual parade to the treadmill, it was better", Huggins said.
Baylor plays at Kansas State on Wednesday.
Said Self of his freshman's productive night: "I thought, offensively, he played pretty good, but I didn't think defensively anybody played very well at all". He got in the gym.
When Kansas took a brief lead, 59-58, with 9:45 remaining, it was Ahmad who answered with a jumper from the foul line.
"It was hard that it was going right past me, something that I might have to go back and just take care of and learn how to stop the penetration without fouling", Jones said.