Just a quick note to point out that WVU is considered one of only five teams in the tournament that can win a championship (by Pat Forde) and is picked to play for the national championship by none other than Joe Lunardi.
This is certainly uncharted territory for WVU and its fans. Let’s hope everyone stays focused… and, if the comments about the team being disappointed in their seeding are true, then it sounds like we’ll have plenty of motivation to prove the bracket-makers wrong.
West Virginia is the 2 seed in the East (Syracuse) Region and will play Morgan St. in Buffalo on Friday.
You can get a copy of the NCAA Tournament Bracket here.
My first impression is that I like the region that we are in. All locations that we will play in will be close so we should have a contingent of Mountaineer faithful there (Buffalo, Syracuse and Indianapolis if we make the Final Four).
I also like the potential match-ups. I do not see a team in this region that we can’t beat and I’m not convinced that Kentucky will even make the regional final (they are a young team; 60% of their offense comes from freshmen).
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not discounting Morgan St. in the 1st round. We’ll have to come out prepared, but it’s certainly a team that we should beat (of course, we “should” have beat Dayton last year and you see how that went).
Overall, I am pleased with how things turned out and look forward to getting started.
If Da’Sean Butler is the heart and soul of this year’s West Virginia University basketball team then Joe Mazzulla is its spine. Mazzulla is the guy that gives this team its backbone and its toughness.
Who knows where the Mountaineer program could be sitting right now if Mazzulla had been able to stay healthy? Last year, Coach Bob Huggins was forced to do some shuffling when Mazzulla went down at Ole Miss with a shoulder injury that eventually forced him to undergo season-ending surgery.
Huggins had to do some more shuffling at the beginning of this year when he realized Joe was not the Joe of old. Mazzulla was doing some adapting of his own by shooting free throws with his right hand to compensate for the pain that he felt when he tried them with his natural left hand.
Full Article at: MSN
Fans from all over North Central West Virginia are gearing up to bring home the Big East Champion Mountaineer Basketball Team home.
Around 150 people have packed into the North Central West Virginia Airport terminal to await the teams arrival, and even more Mountaineer Maniacs are waiting outside the building.
Another 300 to 400 fans are waiting to congratulate the team at the WVU Coliseum. Officials have set up an area for the team once the arrive, and will also have a podium so the players and Coach Bob Huggins can speak to the Mountaineer faithful.
Full Article at: WVNS
I wonder what they were burning??
A number of small fires were reported around Morgantown, Saturday night and early Sunday morning, after the West Virginia University men’s basketball team won the Big East Tournament Championship.
Eight dumpster fires were reported, according to MECCA 911 officials.
Between six and a dozen smaller trash fires were also reported, officials said.
Full Article at: WVNS
Despite, what the talking heads at ESPN say, West Virginia is the most deserving of the 4th No. 1 seed after Syracuse, Kansas and Kentucky.
Let’s just take a quick look at the resume, according to Coach Bob Huggins.
“We have 18 top 100 wins. We have nine top 50 wins. Our non-league RPI was second. Our strength of schedule is going to be 1. We’re going to end up in the top two or three in the RPI,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said following WVU’s 60-58 win over Georgetown in the Big East Tournament finals. “They say do those things, we’ve done those things.”
Full Article at: WVMetroNews
Post-Game Report:
Bigeast.org also has a nice video recap of the game and ensuing on court celebration.
Seconds after West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler beat Georgetown’s two best players on the way to the biggest shot of his life — and Chris Wright missed a last-second runner on the other end — “Take Me Home, Country Roads” blared on the Garden PA. But it appeared the Mountaineers were already there.
Carried by Butler and three other local starters, the Mountaineers defeated Georgetown 60-58 last night in the Garden for their first-ever Big East Tournament title. And it was Butler, the senior guard from Newark, who did the heaviest lifting, with a game-high 20 points, including the final, fateful two.
With the game tied at 58 and nine seconds left, it was obvious Butler, who already had five game-winning shots this season, was getting the ball.
Full Article at: New York Post
After winning the Big East Conference Tournament Championship, Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, the West Virginia University men’s basketball team will return to the Mountain State on Sunday.
The Mountaineers are set to arrive at the North Central West Virginia Airport, in Bridgeport, at 1:30 p.m.
The airport has invited fans to greet the team there.
Full Article at: WVNS
Update: Per the Mountaineer Maniacs, the team will be at the Coliseum at 2:00 today. Get out and show these guys the love that they deserve!
When the celebration exploded Saturday night inside Madison Square Garden and virtually everyone associated with West Virginia ran around the famed floor without much of a clue what to do but go absolutely berserk, it was pretty clear this was what the Mountaineers had been chasing.
Not the school’s first Big East Tournament championship, a stated goal at the start of the season and now an achievement that ends a 26-year drought in conference tournaments, but rather a game in which WVU received championship performances from whoever was asked to submit one to beat Georgetown, 60-58.
Full Article at: Charleston Daily Mail
It’s been quite an up-and-down season for West Virginia point guard Joe Mazzulla. In Saturday’s 60-58 Big East Conference Championship win over Georgetown, Mazzulla’s positives far outweighed any flaws.
With fellow point guard Truck Bryant struggling throughout the conference tournament, WVU head coach Bob Huggins elected to play Mazzulla 29 minutes, including all but one in the second half.
Mazzulla answered the call and was instrumental in leading the Mountaineers to their first ever league championship.
Full Article at: The Daily Athenaeum
Wellington Smith held a sign with a message the West Virginia men’s basketball team had been waiting to call themselves for a long time: Big East Champions.
“We knew we could do it,” Smith said. “And we did it.”
Da’Sean Butler’s circus shot in the paint with four seconds remaining gave West Virginia a 60-58 win over Georgetown, earning the program’s first Big East Conference Championship. It was Butler’s sixth game-winning shot of the season and the second of the Big East Tournament.
Full Article at: The Daily Athenaeum
Bobby Huggins had every right to celebrate this win.
His 10th conference tournament title. The first Big East tournament title for both Huggins and West Virginia. Madison Square Garden. ESPN.
Short of hanging a banner from Indy in three weeks, this is as good as the college hoops season gets.
Full Article at: Beyond The Arc
Yesterday’s Hero was gathered in front of his television, just as so many of us were on that Thursday night, watching the final seconds tick off as West Virginia and Cincinnati were coming down the stretch, watching Today’s Hero do his thing.
Jarrod West felt like he’d been there before.
And he had.
Full Article at: TimesWV
Da’Sean Butler said it best following his sixth game-winning shot of the season.
“We’re number one, baby,” Butler yelled to the packed house at Madison Square Garden.
“Country Roads” poured out the Garden’s speakers Saturday night, as West Virginia won its first Big East championship.
Full Article at: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Big East may be waving goodbye to the double bye for its conference tournament.
When the Big East’s movers and shakers meet in May, the current format is certain to be a pressing topic.
“I will be stunned,” Big East associate commissioner Dan Gavitt said, “if they don’t want to talk about it.”
Full Article at: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Mountaineers won their first ever Big East Conference tournament championship by beating Georgetown 60-58 in the finals late Saturday night. Tournament Outstanding Player Da’Sean Butler hit the game winning shot for the second time in three nights as he caught the ball at the top of the key and then drove into the lane with his left hand. Butler was off-balance when he put the shot up with his right hand. It fell through the hoop with just :04 remaining. The play called was the same WVU used for the game winner in the Cincinnati game. Butler chose to drive this time rather than to shoot the jumper.
Butler’s shot came after Chris Wright had tied the game for Georgetown with a runner in the lane. Wright had another opportunity to tie the game again, but his final attempt was no good as the WVU win set off a wild Mountaineer celebration at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Full Article at: WVMetroNews
Seedings.
For days, they have been the dominant topic of discussion.
That discussion will end at 6 p.m. today when the 65 teams who will compete for college’s national basketball championship will be revealed.
Full Article at: newsandsentinel.com
The Butler did it one more time! Da’Sean Butler’s running jumper with four seconds left lifted sixth-ranked West Virginia to a 60-58 victory over Georgetown to capture the 2010 Big East basketball championship at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Butler, who scored 20 points on 7 of 19 shooting, was named tournament most valuable player immediately after the game. This was West Virginia’s first conference tournament victory since claiming the Atlantic 10 championship on its home floor in 1984.
“We ran the same play that we set up for the Cincinnati game,” Butler said of his game winning shot. “I waited for Casey (Mitchell) to come off. They kind of overplayed one side and went the other way.
Full Article at: MSN
There were times this season when it seemed like the impossible dream. How in the world could this West Virginia basketball team, the one that made both the dramatic comeback and the incredible collapse routine, ever put it all together long enough to reach its goals?
Shoot, there were times Saturday when the question seemed relevant again.
Somehow, someway, though, this team usually managed to put it all together in just enough time to get the job done. And on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, it did it again, this time accomplishing something special, something it had never done before.
Full Article at: The Charleston Gazette
To my way of thinking, three really bizarre things happened in West Virginia University sports circles in the week just ended.
Shockingly, West Virginia winning Saturday night’s championship game of the Big East basketball tournament was easily the one that raised the fewest eyebrows.
Really, go ahead, put yourself in a time machine and go back just a few years and see what your reaction would have been to that. Remember the Catlett years (and slightly into the Beilein era), when if the Mountaineers even made it to the Big East tournament, it was predictably one-and-done? In WVU’s first nine years in the league, there was one tournament win. One.
Full Article at: The Charleston Gazette
As the hoedown wrapped up at Madison Square Garden – after John Denver’s “Country Roads, Take Me Home,” had finally stopped blaring over the loudspeaker – members of the West Virginia basketball squad planted a ladder under the hoop and began to search for their coach.
“Where’s Hugs?” a team manager yelled.
“Get him over here,” forward Kevin Jones said.
Full Article at: Yahoo!
It’s only a basketball game, 40 minutes of chucking a ball into a modernized peach basket. It can’t cure what ails you. It can’t erase mistakes and it can’t rewrite the past.
But sometimes, when the stars align and the moment is just right, a basketball game can mean a little bit more.
“I’m standing here, 56 years old and compared to when I was 26, I didn’t understand,” West Virginia assistant coach Billy Hahn said. “I didn’t realize everything you have to go through and overcome in your life and when a moment like this finally comes, there aren’t words. There just aren’t words.”
Full Article at: ESPN
