MORGANTOWN — It was just 17 days ago when West Virginia walked out of Fifth Third Arena with an important Big 12 road win against Cincinnati in its pocket.

In Darian DeVries’ eye, it may as well have been a year ago, because there is very little from that game that can be expected to repeat itself.

“From that day to when we played them to the way they’re playing now, it’s been so fast how it happened,” DeVries said about the Bearcats’ turn of fortunes as of late. “I don’t know if going on the road freed them up, but they’ve scored a bunch of points and got a little confidence.”

Cincinnati (15-10, 5-9 Big 12) has won three of four since that loss to the Mountaineers.

That stat doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. The Bearcats struggled offensively against WVU, shooting just 31.5% from the floor in the 63-50 loss.

Since then, Cincinnati put up 93 on UCF, 84 on BYU and 85 more against Utah, before an 81-70 loss against Iowa State.

The difference has been guard Jizzle James, who was held scoreless against WVU following an 0 for 8 shooting night.

Since then, the sophomore is averaging 22.3 points per game. He put up 25 against Iowa State, another 25 against Utah and added 24 more against BYU.

“He’s been playing at a high level,” DeVries said. “That’s a big difference for them, and now everybody else gets freed up a little bit.

“He’s making hard ones. He’s getting step backs from 15 (feet), step backs from three. He’s getting to the rim and putting a lot of pressure on you to slow him down.”

The flip side to the non-repeat theory may also be true for the Mountaineers (15-10, 6-8), who saw Joseph Yesufu come off the bench to score 16 points in 15 minutes in the first meeting against the Bearcats.

“On the flip side, we also made some really hard shots that game,” DeVries said. “Joe was hitting 27-footers as the shot clock was running down. There were a lot of points to where I don’t know if we can get those again.

“The way it worked out, great, that was awesome, but I don’t know if we can count on that again.”

And so it becomes a rematch of adjustments.

Cincinnati 7-footer Aziz Bandaogo wasn’t a factor in the first game, neither was James.

WVU point guard Javon Small had 19 points and nine assists in the first meeting, to some degree because the Bearcats simply tried to stay in front of him without hard double teams.

“They did a few different things,” DeVries said. “Early in the game, they were kind of isolating the ball screens and then they tried to trap it a little bit out of the ball screens. Then they started to switch on the ball screens. They kind of threw a little bit of everything at us in that particular game.”

The Mountaineers probably can’t expect to put up another 40 points in the first half. The Bearcats likely don’t expect to be held to 50 points.

And both teams are desperate for a win to add to their NCAA resumes. WVU enters the game having lost six of its last eight.

Cincinnati was once ranked as high as No. 16 in the country, but a strong finish to the season would certainly make the Bearcats’ case pretty strong.

“I feel like we have (an NCAA tournament team),” DeVries said of the Mountaineers. “We have to finish the season off, obviously, with some wins. We have the components and the makeup that belongs in the NCAA tournament. We still have to do our part and continue to win games.”