There was one common feature on the face of every West Virginia player following Monday night’s 82-75 home loss to fifth-ranked Villanova: frustration.

It was understandable, coming from the fourth-ranked Mountaineers, who were denied their seventh straight win and first elusive victory over a top-10 rated ball club in three opportunities.

Villanova, coming off a 13-point loss at Georgetown on Saturday, had an answer for anything and everything WVU tried.

The Wildcats’ tandem of superstar guards, who lead their four-guard offense -- Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds -- were everything everyone thought they were. The Mountaineers did not produce an on-the-ball defender who could corral either guard consistently in the contest. Not Devin Ebanks, not Truck Bryant. Not even Joe Mazzulla could harass Villanova’s guards enough to give WVU a fighting chance.

Fisher, perhaps the fastest guard in the Big East, scored 17 points and carved up the aforementioned -- and any that switched over to help, for the matter -- who tried to stay in front of him. Reynolds, a savvy senior leader, scored just two points in the first half, but rallied in the second half, ripping off 19 points, mostly from a relentless attack of the rim and parade to the free throw line.

“He went off on us,” Bryant said of Reynolds, who was a perfect 10 of 10 from the line.

WVU coach Bob Huggins offered up, “The good teams in this league have good players. It’s funny how that works.”

Then there were an assortment of issues on the offensive end for the Mountaineers (19-4, 8-3 BIG EAST). Senior forward Da’Sean Butler, the team’s leading scorer, was held to just 13 points -- his lowest total in six games. Last year, Butler torched Villanova (21-2, 10-1 BIG EAST), netting a career-high 43 points during a 21-point romp, but the Wildcats were not about to see history repeat itself.

“It is what it is,” said a dejected Butler. “As far as me being the leader, I feel I need to do a little better job, especially today. I probably talked and told people where to go, but as far as me just leading by example, I did nothing.”

Villanova guard Corey Stokes put a security blanket around Butler virtually the entire game. It wasn’t just Stokes contesting shots. He discouraged Butler with furious pressure for nearly all of the 40 minutes Butler logged in the game.

“I think we are too reliant on Da’Sean sometimes,” said sophomore forward Kevin Jones, who scored 11 points and had eight rebounds. “He’s our leading scorer, but we have to provide something around him. We just weren’t able to do that.”

Bryant said, “We definitely need him [Butler] to have a big night, in order to be successful. He’s such a huge key to our team.”

But Butler was hardly the primary source of the Mountaineers recurring offensive ills. Collectively, the team went 7-27 from 3, 18-32 from the free throw line and shot 41 percent for the game.

“We looked very stagnant out there,” Jones said.

“One person misses one and it seems like a trend,” Butler remarked.

Huggins saw the offensive woes as a team shortcoming, not just an individual struggle. “We can’t expect Da to get 30 [points] every game,” he said. “We didn’t do a very good job screening for him. We couldn’t get five guys on the same page. That’s not their fault, that’s my fault.”

Of the 14 missed free throws, Huggins vented: “I mean, come on. It’s really hard when you go 18-32 from the foul line. It makes it harder.”

Bryant scored a team-high 15 points in the loss, but played just 22 minutes.

“We just didn’t match their intensity,” Bryant said. “That’s terrible because we’re at home. We’re supposed to have the intensity.”

What was perhaps even more disheartening for WVU was when Huggins called the switch to the 1-3-1 zone -- which recently crippled St. John’s, Pitt and Louisville -- it offered little resistance to the Wildcats aggressive penetration, swift ball movement and accurate shooting.

Huggins said, “We tried to use our length to make it hard for them to try to stay in front of them. We just didn’t do as good a job getting in the passing lanes and using our length to our advantage and they exposed it.”

“We usually slow a lot of teams down with that 1-3-1,” Jones said. “They were forcing us to go out of that and that really didn’t set well.”

Villanova shot 57 percent for the game, made five of 11 3s, sunk 19 of 22 free throws and out-rebounded WVU, 38-30.

“We got out-rebounded by eight -- that has not happened all year,” Huggins said.