There have been times this season that West Virginia University head coach Bob Huggins can’t watch the action.

MORGANTOWN — Something has to give.

Everyone of course knew two weeks ago, as the Big 12 cranked up for play in its 2022-23 schedule, that defending co-Big 12 champion Baylor’s tonight’s game at West Virginia, which will be played at 7 p.m. and carried on ESPN+, would be an important game.

It was the kind of game you circled in red on your calendar, and not just because former Fairmont Senior star Jalen Bridges was returning to the Coliseum that he had called home the last couple of years before transferring to Waco.

This was supposed to be a crucial game for Baylor as it looked for a second straight championship in the nation’s toughest conference and was supposed to be a key game as West Virginia’s restructured team, filled with transfers and freshmen, got a chance to prove itself.

And, after a 10-2 start, it appeared the Mountaineers were gearing up for a surprise run in the conference, having broken into the Top 25 at No. 24.

Turns out it is an important — even crucial game — for both teams, as when morning comes on Thursday, one of them will be 1-3 and the other at the bottom of the Big 12 at 0-4.

Neither team really knows what hit it. Baylor certainly was blindsided, having been the preseason choice to win the conference while the Mountaineers turned the corner into league play and the wheels fell completely off with losses to Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Kansas.

What happened?

WVU Coach Bob Huggins isn’t sure.

“You play mind games with each other and you’re thinking when your guy is going to the free throw line, this guy is going to break the string. He’ll make two … and then he misses two. Then everybody’s enthusiasm has a tendency to drop.

“Things just haven’t happened at the right time. We haven’t rebounded the way I thought we were capable of rebounding the ball. I’ve played four or five bigs, none of them other than Jimmy Bell … he’s the only one who stands head and shoulders above the rest of them.”

The fact of the matter is WVU hasn’t done anything that it needs to do to win. This was a team averaging 82 points a game after beating Buffalo to go to 9-2. It had put together four games in which it shot 50% or better. It was improving its defense, its rebounding. It was shooting free throws well.

They took a lead over Kansas State, lost it, came back and tied the game on a Kedrian Johnson 3 with 0.9 seconds to play. That should have juiced them, but instead it did nothing but put the squeeze on them. They lost in overtime.

Then they led Oklahoma State, only to get blown out in the second half when Erik Stevenson picked up a dumb technical foul that turned the game inside out..

And Kansas? They came in No. 3 in the nation, left at No. 2 with an easy win over a team that was without Kedrian Johnson, fighting a concussion, and that had to be questioning itself. Certainly Stevenson was off kilter, going 4 for 19 in the game.

But you can’t hang it all on him.

“We haven’t made shots. We haven’t made free throws. We’ve missed layups. We don’t guard anyone,” Huggins said.

Hence, they are 0-3.

Huggins believes his team isn’t far away, but this is not a league to be looking for an identity from the bottom up.

And now they have to deal with Baylor … and Bridges, who surely will be looking to give the home folks something to cheer about; something that he failed to give them consistently when he was playing for the Mountaineers.

Huggins hasn’t paid a whole lot of attention readying himself for Bridges and doesn’t see his return to the Coliseum as the story line for the game.

“Not unless you make him one,” he said to the media. “They have, for as long as I can remember, relied on their guards. Their guards are good and they take the vast majority of their shots. My focus, at least, is the guards. Maybe (assistants) Larry (Harrison) and Ron (Everhart) are looking at it differently, but my focus is on how we can shut those guards down.”

Bridges has pretty much been the same player at Baylor as he was at WVU, averaging 8.9 points and 4.9 rebounds a game this year against 8.4 and 4.8 here last season.

It is a sign that often the grass isn’t always greener just because you transfer.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” said Huggins, who as a player transferred to WVU after a year at Ohio U. “It worked for me, but I was coming home. At the time when I came back both of my grandparents were still alive and they had never seen me play.

“Everybody’s got to do what they gotta do. I’m past the time in my life where I care. I’m past the time in my life where I worry about it. I’ve got enough on my hands here trying to get these guys to win some games than to worry about somebody else.”

Baylor’s Keyonte George is the Bears’ top scorer from his guard spot at 16.8 points a game while the other guard Adam Flagler is averaging 16.7 points a game.

It’s not known if Kedrian Johnson will be back from the concussion protocol or not for the game and WVU has not yet gotten clearance to play Manhattan transfer Jose Perez.