Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post WVU guard Honor Huff enters Tuesday's game against Kansas State needing just one 3-pointer to become just the third WVU men's player to reach 100 in a single season.

MORGANTOWN — Life moves pretty fast. That’s just not a famous line from the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” it also serves as a great point for what the WVU men’s basketball team is currently experiencing.

The Mountaineers (17-12, 8-8 Big 12) travel to Bramlage Coliseum at 8 p.m. today to face Kansas State. WVU will do so with a sudden change of fortune coming off its 79-71 upset win over then-No. 19 BYU.

Today’s matchup is also a reminder that fortunes can change at the drop of a hat. These two schools met back on Jan. 27, in what was a grind-it-out 59-54 victory for the Mountaineers. A little more than two weeks later, K-State officials fired head coach Jerome Tang, citing the move was made in the school’s best interest following Tang’s postgame remarks about his players after a loss against Houston on Feb. 14.

The Wildcats (11-18, 2-14) are 1-3 under interim head coach Matthew Driscoll.

Life moves pretty fast, indeed, and so, too, maybe has the Mountaineers’ outlook on their season.

It was just a week ago when WVU was thought to be down and out for the count, the result of three consecutive losses. Two of those defeats came against Oklahoma State and Utah, which currently reside at the bottom of the Big 12 standings, which is where Kansas State also finds itself.

Instead of the knockout, WVU got up and took the standing-eight count, and then countered with one of its biggest wins of the season against the Cougars.

“I told the guys in the locker room that I really felt that (the BYU win) was a byproduct of the previous 72 hours and their ability to stay the course, stay together and handle disappointment in the same manner that they handle success,” WVU head coach Ross Hodge said. “They’re the same guys, put the same work in. They learned from it, didn’t run from it. They didn’t point fingers and then got that 72 hours on the floor.”

WVU now ends the regular season with two repeat opponents, both of which the Mountaineers beat the first time around. There is today’s game with the Wildcats, before Friday’s rematch against UCF inside the Hope Coliseum. WVU won on the road against UCF, 74-67, on Feb. 14.

A sweep of these two games by WVU could, in theory, have the Mountaineers sitting in sixth place in the Big 12, just right underneath names such as nationally-ranked Iowa State and Kansas.

In that scenario, take the WVU label off for a moment. Forget about NET rankings and strength of schedules and Pomeroy ratings and simply think of Team A finishing with a 10-8 conference record in the Big 12, good enough for sixth place in the league. That team would have six Quad 1 wins, which is currently more than teams such as Tennessee, St. John’s, Iowa and Villanova have. All four of those schools are safely projected into the NCAA tournament.

Maybe Team A even adds another victory to its resume in the Big 12 tournament. Computer metrics aside, the simple eye test of the NCAA tournament selection committee would seem to favor that kind of overall resume.

“I’m thankful to be in the situation where we have multiple opportunities,” Hodge said. “Even as frustrating and disappointing as our last couple of losses have been, we still are in a situation where you can meet your ultimate goals if you do what you need to do, because of the opportunities that are going to be presented to you over the next couple of weeks.”

What remains to be seen is whether or not the Mountaineers can continue to take advantage of those opportunities.

Against K-State, WVU will be searching for its first win inside Bramlage since 2021, back when Deuce McBride and Jalen Bridges were still on the Mountaineers’ roster.

WVU will have to contend with high-scoring guard P.J. Haggerty, who averages 23 points per game and is the second-leading scorer in the Big 12. He was held to just 16 points on 6 of 19 shooting in the first meeting this season.

The flip side is WVU is coming off the BYU win in which it dominated on the glass and Honor Huff and Brenen Lorient combined for 37 points. Under Driscoll, K-State’s defense has allowed 82.5 points per game.

“I wish I was a little more back into my rhythm, but the do-or-die mindset we have right now as a team and the camaraderie we have, I don’t want to let my team down,” Huff said. “I think I’m coming out with the kind of mindset that I’m going to leave it all out there and have some fun.”