MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Wash, rinse, repeat - that must be what it has felt like for West Virginia the last couple of times it has gone out to the Phog (Allen Fieldhouse) to play the Kansas Jayhawks.
 
Start out strong, build a big lead and then wait for an A-bomb to explode.
 
Three years ago, the Mountaineers were destroying Kansas on the glass in building an 18-point first half lead, but critical missed free throws down the stretch opened the door for Kansas to tie the game in regulation and eventually win it, 76-69, in overtime.
 
Then, West Virginia came within a gnat's eyelash of winning last year's game.
 
The Mountaineers, leading by 14 points, were cruising along with three minutes remaining and all those Jayhawk fans, who in the first half set a Guinness Book of World Records standard for the loudest crowd roar at an indoor sporting event at 130.4 decibels, were beginning to make their way to the exits.
 
Even ESPN commentator Dick Vitale thought this one was in the bag for West Virginia, talking about what a great win it was going to be for Bob Huggins' Mountaineer program. Of course, we all know that Dick isn't in the Naismith Hall of Fame because he won a lot of basketball games!
 
And then the roof caved in on the Mountaineers.
 
West Virginia began treating the basketball like it was a lit stick of dynamite and when the Jayhawks weren't raining down contested 3s, they were marching to the free throw line where the Mountaineers couldn't guard them.
 
The avalanche picked up speed with 44 seconds left when Kansas' full-court press came up with a steal that led to Frank Mason III's driving layup that cut West Virginia's lead to 69-66.
 
Two Esa Ahmad free throws pushed the lead back to 71-66, but Devonte' Graham sank another 3 with 33.1 ticks left.
 
West Virginia's fourth turnover in a two-minute span turned out to be its biggest, leading to a pair of Mason III free throws that tied the game at 71. Guard Tarik Phillip missed a long 3 from the wing at the buzzer and the game went into overtime, which immediately turned into an 8-0 Jayhawk run and an 84-80 victory.
 
Huggins was asked during his Thursday morning Big 12 coaches' teleconference if he was going to revisit that game with his team.
 
"No. We're not going back to last year," he said, adding that they did look at some tape of the first game this year to go over some of the things the Jayhawks ran offensively and some of the things his team ran against them.
 
That mysterious second-half Allen Fieldhouse virus that has been plaguing the Mountaineers since 2015 even traveled to Morgantown earlier this year when West Virginia experienced a similar reaction.
 
WVU had a double-digit, first-half lead and was in control of the game with 10 minutes left. Then the Mountaineers hit pause on the scoring button and Kansas couldn't stop scoring, turning a nine-point deficit with six minutes to go into a six-point victory.
 
"In that particular game, we did not play great," Kansas coach Bill Self said Thursday. "They controlled the game for 30 minutes, but we played a really good last 10 and I'm sure Bob would say, 'We played pretty good for 30 and didn't close the game out.'"
 
That defeat stung doubly because the overflow crowd of 14,115 that came out to watch West Virginia try and win its fifth straight against KU at the Coliseum went home unhappy.
 
"What disappoints me most is we work like crazy to get people interested, and we have a packed house and we don't finish the job," Huggins said after the game. "You're going to miss shots, but we shouldn't throw the ball away the way we did today."
 
Kansas has won eight and lost four against West Virginia since WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012, including five victories in Lawrence. Five of the 12 meetings have been decided by two possessions or less, including WVU's two overtime losses.
 
"Every time we play West Virginia here it seems like it's a last-possession game," Self said. "We know they will come in, and we know how hard they will fight and how hard they'll compete, and we've got to be aware of that and ready for that challenge."
 
So, West Virginia packs up its blue uniforms and heads out to Lawrence for another crack at the Jayhawks, seeking a way to play a complete 40-minute game instead of a great 30 or 35 minutes.
 
Huggins' keys to beating Kansas in Lawrence?
 
"Not throwing it to them at the end of the game and maybe get a whistle your way once, or a loose ball bounces your way, or maybe a shot falls for you," he opined. "We've had a whole litany of things that have gone wrong at the end of the games."
 
Those litany of things usually happening right about the time the Mountaineers' reach their spin cycle, ultimately spiraling the game out of control.
 
Tipoff has been pushed back 15 minutes to 6:15 to accommodate ESPN College GameDay's coverage. ESPN (Dan Shulman, Jay Bilas and Maria Taylor) will televise the contest nationally, while the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's radio coverage begins one hour earlier at 5:15 on affiliates throughout the Mountain State.
 
Fans can also access the broadcast online via WVUsports.com and as well as the popular mobile app TuneIn.