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MORGANTOWN - During their most recent stretch of two losses in three games, the West Virginia Mountaineers grew tired of watching opponents come from all angles to capitalize on every single mistake they made.

Straight-line drives resulted in easy frontside layups, failed blockouts meant easy backside layups.

''Teams got like 15, 20 easy points on us,'' WVU forward Da'Sean Butler noticed. ''And if you take those easy baskets away by us just doing the right things, we probably win some of those games.''

That's particularly the case if you pick a pocket, then quickly push it to the other end and get easy transition points, as the Mountaineers did during an 86-59 victory against Providence on Saturday at the WVU Coliseum.

''Our defense was so much better. We created offense from our defense,'' West Virginia coach Bob Huggins pointed out. ''How many runouts did we get? How many open looks and layups did we get because we created from our defense?''

A lot.

The plan for the Mountaineers against the Friars, who hit 17 3-pointers in their last game, was first to keep that from happening and then run the floor with their tentacles on alert.

Out in front of it all was 6-foot-9 freshman Devin Ebanks who raised his shooting percentage with a pair of thunderous dunks and finished with 13 points, one two-handed slam shy of his career high.

''That's what I try to do every game, at least try to get two or three buckets out of transition,'' Ebanks said.

One of those came after a three-quarter court pass from Butler and put the capper on an 11-0, first-half run that helped the Mountaineers (16-7 overall, 5-5 Big East) extend their lead to 34-18 with 3:44 left in the first half.

''Devin has those arms that are just touching the ceiling right now,'' Butler said. ''You've got to give him the ball; he's running the floor real hard. That's what happened.''

When it wasn't Ebanks flushing or Kevin Jones and Butler hitting soft, mid-range jumpers, it was Alex Ruoff rediscovering his 3-point stroke.

Ruoff was 6 of 7 from beyond the arc - the most he'd made since that record-setting 9 of 14 effort against Radford 12 games earlier.

''Alex making 6 out of 7 3s, I think that has as much to do with us playing well as anything because now, all of a sudden they've got to chase him and they've got to chase Da'Sean and that opens things up for other guys,'' Huggins said.

Ruoff finished with 24 points, six assists, and five rebounds.

Providence coach Keno Davis, who parlayed a 28-5 season at Drake last season into a Bigger, Eastier gig this one, knew Ruoff had been struggling with his shot, but said that was no reason for any of his guys to fall asleep on West Virginia's only senior.

''He's a great shooter. I knew he was going to knock down shots,'' Davis said. ''I would like to have eliminated some of the wide-open looks. You understand when a guy is going to knock down shots, and you just go, 'hey nice shot,' because he's a great shooter. But the wide-open ones, you've just got to improve on as a team. If you let a great shooter get 2-3 wide-open looks, now they get their rhythm, their confidence, to take further shots, more contested shots. When a great shooter gets on a roll like that, he makes you pay.''

You've got to figure some of that was happening last Wednesday, when the Friars (14-9, 6-5) knocked down a school-record tying 17 of them against Villanova (in a loss, no less), as Jeff Xavier hit five, Curry Sharaud hit six, and Weyinmi Efejuko hit four.

Providence, which averages nine made 3-pointers in conference play, was a paltry 3 of 18 from beyond the arc against the Mountaineers, with Xavier hitting all three and winding up with a team-best 15 points.

''We did a bad job of losing Xavier a couple of times,'' Ruoff said. ''A couple of enthusiastic timeouts from Coach Huggins, we didn't lose him anymore.''

That's why West Virginia's coach put on a happy face after the game.

''I thought everybody we put in the game played well,'' Huggins said. ''That's as good a team effort as we've had in a while. And when we score 86 points, we're going to win.''

Butler finished with nine rebounds and 17 points, ending a remarkable string of six consecutive league games in which he scored at least 21 points. Still no WVU player has done that since Wil Robinson in 1972.

Truck Bryant added 10 points for the Mountaineers.