MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - You wonder how much Bob Huggins and Nick Saban rubbed shoulders when the two were here at West Virginia during the late 1970s.
 
Once his WVU playing career was finished in 1977, Huggins spent a year as the team's graduate assistant basketball coach the same time Saban was coaching the defensive secondary for football coach Frank Cignetti.
 
Of course, Saban's no-nonsense approach has helped him become one of the great coaches in college football history. A couple of years ago, it was Saban who chastised the media for praising his Crimson Tide players too much because his guys were beginning to soak in all of the accolades they were receiving.
 
Saban called the praise "rat poison."
 
Huggins didn't go quite that far after his team's uneven performance on Wednesday night against Iowa State, but he did issue a little friendly reminder to his guys yesterday afternoon that they just can't walk out on the floor and expect to win basketball games. 
 
They have to be attentive and focused at all times, and they have to give maximum effort - things clearly lacking during the final 10 minutes of the Mountaineers' 15-point victory over the Cyclones two nights ago.
 
Huggins was upset with his team's lack of enthusiasm and emotion during his postgame radio show and he wasn't about to let it continue in practice on Thursday.
 
"We were going to go and fix some things yesterday," he explained Friday. "I think they got the message loud and clear."
 
Huggins said if his young team believes it has arrived because it is knocking on the door of college basketball's Top 10 then all they have to do is think back to last year when the Mountaineers finished the season six games under .500.
 
"We're talking about at least half of our team that took multiple, multiple ass whippings a year ago. I don't know how they could," he said. "They understand … I think they do - I think they understand they were 0-9 on the road last year (in Big 12 play). Once they (understood) what you've got to do and what you've got to put into it, then we (went) to the Big 12 Tournament and (won) two games against two really good teams. 
 
"It was painstaking to get to there and those guys after the Big 12 Tournament understood how hard you've got to play, how you can't take plays off and how you can't trot down the floor – at least all but one of our guys have figured that out, and we're going to help him with it," he added.
 
Trotting down the floor and taking plays off will not be a good recipe for success on Saturday at Oklahoma because if they do, veteran coach Lon Kruger will slice and dice the 13^th-ranked Mountaineers like a master chef.
 
"He does a great job of finding the hot hand," Huggins said. "If you look at earlier games (Austin) Reaves was the guy that they got iso'd. Then (Kristian) Doolittle was the guy and now it's (Brady) Manek because Manek has had the hot hand and that's what Lon does."
 
Therefore, the Mountaineers are going to have to stick to Oklahoma's shooter's like glue, pursue the basketball relentlessly when they miss shots, hold on to the basketball when they get it and quit giving away free points at the foul line. Statistically, the Sooners are not a great rebounding team, and West Virginia must use that to its advantage on Saturday.
 
Teams can miss shots and still be successful if they can get second and third attempts.
 
"We want to be one of the premier rebounding teams in the country - like we have been at times in the past," Huggins explained. "With the personnel we have, there is absolutely no reason we can't be, but they've got to put the effort into doing it. There have been times they have and there have been times they haven't."
 
As for his team's shooting woes, the veteran coach believes he's got the guys capable of making shots at a higher rate than they have been for most of the season.
 
"I really believe we can beat virtually anybody in the country if we make some shots," Huggins said. "We can't do what we did the last game and go shoot 50 percent from the foul line. And we're shooting 41 percent (from the field). That's not good enough. There have been multiple times we haven't shot 40 percent.
 
"The game is about making shots," he continued. "It hasn't been that we haven't had open shots, we have had open shots, and it hasn't been one or two guys – it's been a multitude of guys."
 
West Virginia (18-4, 6-3) has been unbeatable at home this year. It has not been unbeatable on the road, dropping back-to-back league games at Kansas State and Texas Tech after defeating Oklahoma State 55-41 on Jan. 6.
 
And WVU didn't exactly set the place on fire in Stillwater either. It shot just 38.8 percent from the floor, which was far better than what the Cowboys shot from behind the 3-point line by making just 1-of-20.
 
If this Mountaineer team wants to be a Big 12 title contender and play its way into a good seeding in next month's NCAA Tournament, then it is going to have to start performing better in other people's gyms.
 
Saturday is a good time to start, which is why Huggins sent his team a message on Thursday. Now we'll see if they were paying attention.
 
A 2 p.m. tipoff is slated for Saturday's game, to be televised nationally on ESPNU. The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG radio coverage begins at 1 p.m. leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs at 1:30 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
 
West Virginia has won twice in its last three visits to the Lloyd Noble Center and is 2-5 all-time there. Overall, Oklahoma (14-9, 4-5) has a 10-9 series lead although the Mountaineers have won five of the last six games.