MORGANTOWN — Kobe Johnson put the point in point guard Tuesday night as West Virginia returned to its winning ways with a 70-57 victory over Jacksonville State of Alabama.

The Mountaineers were in need of a spark coming off a disappointing and discouraging 73-65 loss to Monmouth and coach Josh Eilert did a restructuring job on his team with a heart to heart talk, with a change in the starting lineup with freshman Ofri Nevah replacing Seth Wilson, integrating a 2-3 defense into a major part of the game plan.

And then he handed the keys to Johnson to drive the new model.

Johnson put together a career-high 19 points to tie Quinn Slazinski as top scorer, then added a career-high six rebounds and five assists, also a career-high. Not a triple-double but a triple career high was good enough.

Considering that coming into the season he was not penciled in to come off the bench as Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa ran the point before Kriisa benched himself with a nine-game suspension for taking impermissible benefits while in Tucson it was a huge step forward.

“It means a lot to me. I’ve been putting in a lot of work.. I’ve been through a lot and these guys trusted me,” Johnson said of the career highs.

After sleepwalking through the Monmouth game, WVU concentrated on energy as it readied itself for this one.

“We were pushing the pace at an extremely high level and that’s all Kobe Johnson,” Slazinski said. “We want him in transition. He’s an unbelievable finisher. We have great sets off a made shot but off misses we have to get that ball up the floor and we did that tonight.”

WVU came into the game with an attitude.

“I talked about last week how we lost a street fight,” Slazinski said. “We didn’t do that tonight. We had guys like Seth Wilson, Kobe and guys playing their butts off and diving on the floor. That’s West Virginia basketball.”

So what has happened with Johnson? His play has been unlike anything he produced previously in his career. Consider that as the point guard he has had only five turnovers in the three games this, just one foul despite being an aggressive defensive player.

And while Eilert was worried coming into the season about Kriisa being more of a pass-first point guard who had to be coaxed to shoot, Johnson leads the team in shots taken.

“During practice I’m just trying to pick up the energy. Josh, he trusts me. That’s what we have been trying to do all week, just pick up the energy,” Johnson said.

Eilert expresses confidence in Johnson.

“From Day 1 when he walked into West Virginia, he’s been steady,” Eilert said. “You knew you could count on him, but you had to get more aggression out of him and that’s been a struggle. For him to get more aggression and more confidence that will go a long way for West Virginia basketball.”

Eilert wouldn’t bite when asked if Johnson might be taking enough advantage of Kriisa’s absence to be considered playing point even when the top-rated transfer comes back.

“That’s a nice decision to have,” he said. “We’re giving him great experience and we could play him off the ball and isolate him on some of those smaller guards. He’s got a big, strong aggressive body and can have his way with smaller guards. He gives you some things that Kerr doesn’t.”

West Virginia trailed early and needed to change the flow of the game. Switching to a 2-3 zone turned the trick as Jax State looked like it hadn’t worked on facing that and by halftime WVU had raced away to 40-27 lead and kept it in double figures until the Gamecocks made one late run that was brushed aside.