MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Now wasn't that fun last night? Fifty-five minutes of back-and-forth college basketball!
 
West Virginia's gutty, 104-96 triple-overtime victory over TCU will likely have more of an impact on the Horned Frogs' season than West Virginia's, but there was definitely some fertilizer being put into the Mountaineer basketball garden yesterday evening.
 
For the first time this year, West Virginia's backcourt appeared to be stabilized.
 
Freshman point guard Jordan McCabe is coming off his two best performances. Nearly 37 percent of the 106 points he's scored this year have come in the last two games against Baylor and TCU.
 
His season-high 25 points last night also included a season-high 11 assists, which meant that he was responsible for 47 of WVU's 104 points. 
 
For the better part of this month in losses to Texas Tech, Texas, Kansas and Kansas State, the Mountaineers have been hard-pressed to score 47 points, let alone have 47 come from one guy.
 
Although he didn't make any of them, McCabe also showed a willingness to step up and take game-winning shots (three in all) – a rare trait for a freshman. The last freshman I can recall so eager to do so was Jevon Carter.
 
Junior guard Jermaine Haley demonstrated once again the importance of assertiveness in the game of basketball. Haley was more assertive at Baylor this past Saturday, and he was definitely much more assertive last night against TCU.
 
His 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists were big, but perhaps his biggest moment came late in the second half when he had his shot attempt going at the rim swatted right back in his face. Undeterred, he grabbed the ball and put up another shot that dropped through the basket to give WVU a critical two points.
 
Two weeks ago, I'm not sure Jermaine goes after the ball to get that second shot attempt with the same amount of gusto and desire.

Chase Harler gave West Virginia 51 minutes off the bench, which has to be some sort of record. Chase scored 13 points and handed TCU about a half-dozen points on turnovers, but the points he scored last night were some of the most impactful of the game.
 
If you recall, moments after TCU intercepted his soft, cross-court pass for a layup, Harler responded by tying the game with 40 seconds remaining off a pretty feed from center Derek Culver.
 
And in a game full of big shots, was there any bigger than the 3 Harler hit from the corner with 1:31 left in the third overtime?
 
That put West Virginia up 98-91 and finally gave the Mountaineers some much-needed breathing room.
 
Emmitt Matthews Jr. had a little bit of a mixed bag last night as freshmen are apt to do. He made just one basket in 21 minutes and struggled at times to stick to his man on defense, but his big 3 from the wing (only his fifth triple this season) put a stop to another TCU run, giving West Virginia back the lead.
 
Even walk-on freshman Taevon Horton got into the game and made a big basket. Brimming with confidence after scoring, Taevon's second shot attempt from Star City landed much closer to Westover than the basket, but his two minutes gave the team a little first-half boost of energy.
 
Lamont West's 17 points included a couple of big 3s, his biggest coming early in the second overtime to give the Mountaineers a 93-91 lead.
 
Sophomore forward Andrew Gordon didn't have quite the same game he had in Waco on Saturday when he scored a season-high 13 points, mainly because Huggins couldn't afford to take Culver off the floor.
 
Culver's 22-point, 21-rebound performance was an exhibition of sheer effort and determination. Seemingly every basketball that caromed off the rim in his direction he gobbled up. Even the balls bouncing out of bounds Culver raced over to retrieve.
 
"Now, every time a ball goes up, it has DC's name on it. It's mine," Culver said afterward.
 
Offensively, Derek made his field goal attempts (eight-of-12) and he also made his free throws (six-of-seven), no small feat considering he was just a 56-percent free throw shooter heading into last night's game. I had a sneaking suspicion he might make them because I saw him spend about an hour shooting free throws with basketball staffer James Long on the Coliseum floor Monday evening while the WVU volleyball team was setting up the court for a winter camp.
 
Culver kept right on shooting them with all of that commotion going on around him.
 
It wasn't all good for Culver, though, because his eight turnovers nearly gave him a dubious triple-double, but to me the most astonishing aspect of Culver's 22-point night was he did it without possessing a single post move.
 
That's because he still doesn't have one yet.
 
Think about that. Then, think about what Culver is going to be able to do when Huggins and assistant coach Erik Martin can spend some time with him in the offseason teaching him the proper footwork, positioning, angles and spacing.
 
I wasn't around to see what Huggins did with all of those fantastic bigs he developed at Cincinnati, but it's hard not to let your mind race when it comes to what he is capable of doing with Culver if Derek will let him.
 
Overall, this is the best I've felt about this basketball team since Nov. 8, the day before the season opener against Buffalo.
 
I feel better about them, not because it beat an NCAA Tournament-caliber team on Tuesday night, and not because I'm being mesmerized by mediocrity (I learned that phrase from our long-suffering-Pitt-Panther-football-supporting friends), but rather because this team is finally playing for each other instead of with each other.
 
That was never more evident than at the end of the game last night when referees Joe DeRosa, Terry Wymer and Darron George swallowed their whistles on an obvious goaltend call on Haley's shot attempt that would have given West Virginia the game's deciding basket in regulation.
 
Instead of complaining, instead of getting discouraged and dejected, these guys continued to fight and fight until the moment finally came when they could dictate the final outcome and not let somebody else determine it for them.
 
"I told them yesterday that we aren't giving up," Huggins said. "That's not in my DNA and there's a lot of them, I don't think it is in their DNA either."
 
Indeed, these last two performances have put the team on a path toward earning back the trust of Mountaineer Nation.
 
Finally, there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel – and it's not another oncoming train!