Even Bob Huggins was a little disoriented, discovering before the game that he had forgotten to pack his pants.

“I went in and I kind of jokingly said (after the game) that we were awful the first half and it was my fault because I forgot my pants,” Huggins said. “Of course Da’Sean (Butler) being Da’Sean, he can’t wait to say, ‘Well, you’ve got to wear that now until we lose. Isn’t that why you wear what you wear until we lose?’”

Butler certainly wore out St. John’s, hitting seven of seven from 3-point distance to tie a Big East record and scoring a season-high 33 points in front of friends and family. Butler has been on a scoring binge of late, producing 27 points last Saturday against Louisville and adding 18 earlier this week against Pitt.

Huggins said everyone was looking for Butler on Saturday against St. John’s.

“We ran a couple of sets for him and actually changed some things that we usually run for our guards and we ran them for him in the second half, just kind hoping he would make a couple and get it going,” Huggins said.

St. John’s (12-10, 2-8) actually led by 16 early in the second half before the roof caved in. The Red Storm made just three baskets during a seven-minute stretch that saw the Mountaineers go on a 26-7 run.

Butler and Wellington Smith scored 16 of West Virginia’s 26 points during the run.

“Da’Sean has such a great will to win and he really shot the ball well,” said Huggins. “He was terrific, but Wells really helped us get back in it with some big, big shots and then we got it going a little bit.”

Joe Mazzulla, who was questionable coming into today’s game with an ankle injury, played almost the entire second half after watching the first half from the bench. Although Mazzulla didn’t score, Huggins thought he was a key to the comeback with his play in the back of the 1-3-1 zone.

“I wasn’t going to play him. Somebody (on the bench) said, ‘Well do you want to hold him?’ I said, ‘What’s the use of holding him? We’ve got to try and win the game.’ He did an absolutely great job,” said Huggins. “We probably played him more minutes than even what I would have liked to. In today’s game with the 3, a 10-point lead is really not a lot so I wanted to get enough cushion so we could get him out and rest him. The great thing about Joe is Joe will take care of himself and he will work very hard because I know how bad he wants to play on Monday.”

On Monday West Virginia (19-3, 8-2) faces Villanova in a Big East showdown to be televised on ESPN. The Wildcats lost earlier today at Georgetown to drop their first conference game of the season. Villanova and Syracuse are now tied at the top of the Big East standings with 9-1 records while West Virginia is second at 8-2.

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