**You have entered the Mountaineer Basketball Chat**

its_in_ebanks: Well guys, I decided that I'm going to enter the nba draft. It's time to take my game to the next level.

mazzulla_oblongata: dag, man. thats too bad. I thought we could make another run at it next year. with you and dasean leaving now we dont have ANY good small forwards

flowers_for_algernon: Ahem.

mazzulla_oblongata: what?

flowers_for_algernon: I'm standing right here, dude.

mazzulla_oblongata: oh, right. my bad.

HuggUlongtime: Fellas, I talked to Devin and I think he's making the right decision for him now. The NBA rookie salaries are about to drop with a new collective bargaining agreement, there might be a lockout after next year, and this is his chance to take advantage of the current system.

istanbulsh-t: OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

HuggUlongtime: What? What's wrong?

istanbulsh-t: I PLAY ON TEEM WITH PROFESSIONAL AGAIN!!! I GET SUSPENDED FOR SURE!!!

HuggUlongtime: Relax, Deniz. Devin is only a pro if he leaves this team to go to the NBA. He can't be a pro here.

(as far as YOU know.. heh heh)

istanbulsh-t: HUGGS MAN. YOU ARE ALWAYS KNOWING WITH THE KNOWLEDGE.

istanbulsh-t: YOU COME OVER TO MY DORM. I MAKE YOU HUGE SAUSAGE.

HuggUlongtime: Um... that's very nice of you Deniz. I think I'll pass, though.

istanbulsh-t: OK BUT ONE DAY I GIVE YOU SAUSAGE

flowers_for_algernon: Say, what about the others? What you guys going to do now?

sir_wellington: Update my passport.

the_butler_did_it: Try to recover the scraps of my knee that are still on the floor in Indianapolis.

truck_me?_truck_you: yo the trucks foot is right on schedule for the predraft workouts

mazzulla_oblongata: wait. youre going pro?

truck_me?_truck_you: haha nah im just playin. I'm gonna be here all four years.

jude: /bangs head against table

the_butler_did_it: Well, I'm really going to miss my time in Morgantown, but I think with the recruiting class Huggs has coming in, you guys should be able to stay at a high level.

the_butler_did_it: Just check out this center Huggs got you for next year, David Nyarsuk:

**the_butler_did_it is attempting to directly connect**

**the_butler_did_it is directly connected**

the_butler_did_it:


Nyarsuk_on_dis: I PLAY BASKETBALL FOR THE WVU

istanbulsh-t: DO YOU LIKE SAUSAGE?

One of the great things about a sustained March Madness run is the sudden national interest in the 2009-2010 WVU basketball program that so many of us have followed from the very first exhibition game against Mountain State.

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting feature articles about WVU basketball from sources like Fox Sports, Yahoo, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN.

Hell, WVU football coach Bill Stewart is even making news singing "Country Roads" in a Myrtle Beach sports bar after the Elite 8 win over Kentucky.

With all the sudden attention comes many inaccurate observations about a team many in the national media are just seeing for the first time (if I hear one more commentator say that our primary defense is a 1-3-1, I might drive to Bristol with a set of pliers and a blowtorch, Marcellus-Wallace-style).

But one central theme in most of the coverage you'll see and hear over the next few days focuses on what the Final Four and a chance at a national championship means to the State of West Virginia and its citizens.

Well, I'll tell you what it means.

- It means that something legitimately and purely West Virginian is excellent. It's been said many times that there are no professional teams in West Virginia, so the Mountaineers are both the college and the professional teams for West Virginians.

It goes even deeper than that, though. West Virginians are still professional sports fans. Part of the allure of sports has always been the pride that comes from your team, from your city (or a city nearby) being your representative in a competitive world. Philly fans identify with the Eagles. "That's MY team. They belong to ME."

But as I first noted in this article called "Why WVU Athletics Matter" from 2007, "every professional team of West Virginia citizens' interest represents someone else primarily. The Pirates and Steelers belong to Pennsylvania and (ugh) Pittsburgh. The Orioles, Nationals, Redskins, and Ravens are Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia. Sure, they'll take your money when you're buying tickets and jerseys and hot dogs, but they're bloodless corporations, and you're just an outsider with a wallet."

The Mountaineers are different, though. That's MY state flag at their games. The University is funded in part from MY tax dollars (and more directly, my tuition when getting my degree there a few years ago).



A tradition unique to West Virginians.


Sure, there are non-West Virginians that are WVU fans. (Morgantown is basically Newark West at this point.) But even those that never set foot in a classroom in Morgantown from this state bleed Blue and Gold, and it's because regardless of your affiliation with the school, the team is representing the entire State, and it's representing the State WELL.

"That's MY team. They belong to ME."

- It means that for once, our state isn't receiving national headlines because of a chemical spill in Nitro or a citation of some statistic indicating that we're among the poorest states in the U.S.

Our state is receiving headlines because the team is demonstrating that, contrary to popular belief, you can be excellent in a place like Morgantown, a place like West Virginia, surrounded by some of the most caring, generous people on Earth.

- It means that in places like Los Angeles, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, Chicago, Illinois, and New York, New York, average citizens are learning that West Virginia is, in fact, its own state and not an extension of Virginia. And I mention those four locales because I've had conversations in each of those cities where I was asked where I was from, responded "West Virginia", and then had to explain to the person that I wasn't telling them I was from Virginia.

(Come on people, I know we don't make much news there, but it's one of the 50 you're supposed to learn in the 4th grade. Has its own capital and everything.)

- It means that for the first time in 51 years, there are only 4 teams with a chance to win a National Championship in college basketball, and WVU is one of those teams. In places like Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Lexington, Kentucky, and Los Angeles, California, maybe that doesn't mean that much.

But West Virginia University is without a championship in either of its two revenue generating sports despite being competitive in both more so than most other places enduring such droughts. (An oft-cited statistic is the fact that WVU Football is the winningest program in the history of Division I to never win a championship.)

And the best player on the last Mountaineer team to make the Final Four is seventy-one years old.

It's been a loooooong time since we've been here.



When the last guy to take a shot for you in the Final Four is the NBA Logo, you don't go to the Final Four very often.


- It means that some of us can finally recover from a cold night in December, 2007 when the Mountaineer football team endured one of the most stunning upsets in the history of college football when it lost, at home, 13-9, to blood rival Pitt, who was 4-7 going into the game, with a berth in the BCS National Championship Game on the line.

WVU's head football coach would soon leave for Michigan (as its basketball coach did a season before), but on that night, described the events as "a nightmare."

Many WVU fans wondered openly if we'd ever come that close to a championship again.

- It means that from Bluefield to Ripley to War to Charles Town, regular West Virginians are looking long and hard at their bank accounts and Yahoo driving directions to Indianapolis, Indiana, wondering if they can afford to miss what seems like a once-in-a-lifetime event.

And if you think that there won't be a sizable contingent of us at the game on Saturday night, well, you don't know us very well.



The road to Indianapolis will be well-worn by West Virginians. (Beware Ohio drivers.)


For his part, no one seems to "get" what a title would mean to this State more than the man at the helm of the Mountaineer basketball team, Coach Bob Huggins.

Huggins indicated that understanding in his quote from this USA Today article:

"They piped in to all the factories and all the mines and everything, the play-by-play, because otherwise guys were trying to get off their shift because they wanted to watch the game," Huggins said after WVU had secured a spot in the Elite 8.

"Everybody in West Virginia is listening to the game or watching the game. That's how much it means to our state. There's such great pride there. And for me, having played there and being born there, I understand how much it means. And I think the great thing is these guys understand how much it means to the people."

And believe me when I tell you that it means more to us because we know it means more to them.

Regardless of whether or not the pundits on "Around the Horn" or "Pardon the Interruption" know what kind of defense WVU runs or how they get their scoring, they know that with each win, the State of West Virginia gets closer to a state of euphoria.

Point them here if they want to know why.

The Truck is off the road for the remainder of the NCAA Tournament.

Early Tuesday evening, Mountaineer fans began receiving texts and notification on message boards (like the one on this site) that Truck Bryant had suffered a serious injury to his foot in practice leading up to Thursday's Sweet 16 matchup against the #11-seed Washington Huskies.

Eventually, those rumors were verified by various news outlets, including this espn.com article. That report indicated that school officials confirmed that Truck "fractured the fifth metatarsal in his right foot," and that Coach Bob Huggins was uncertain if it was an injury that occurred during practice or during WVU's second-round game against Missouri.

"He thinks he did it in the game Sunday (against Missouri)," Huggins said Tuesday night as reported in this Charleston Daily Mail article. "He said it was sore Sunday. He got treatment Monday and we didn't do much other than watch a whole lot of (Washington's) film Monday. He was backpedaling (Tuesday) and he said he felt something snap."

Obviously, the hearts of Mountaineer fans all around the nation go out to Truck as he's forced to watch his team proceed in the NCAA Tournament without him.

"I feel sorry for Truck that this injury happened during this time of the season,'' coach Bob Huggins said in a statement released by the school Tuesday night.

Bryant played arguably his best game of the season against Missouri (even earning high praise from a frequent critic- me- in this article from Monday) despite only scoring 4 points on 2-3 shooting.

To quote myself (don't mind if I do):

Quote:



After beginning to show serious signs of improvement as a pure point guard, Truck Bryant will have to watch the rest of the NCAA Tournament from the sidelines. (Photo by Howard Smith/US Presswire)


Fortunately for the Mountaineers, while Truck Bryant was officially listed as the starting point guard for the Mountaineers, "backup" PG Joe Mazzulla has seen the majority of the playing time in the backcourt for WVU since the Big East Tournament. Mazzulla's health improved just as Truck's play became more erratic than usual, and Coach Huggins has given the redshirt junior Mazzulla significantly more minutes since Truck went 1-10 against Cincinnati in the Big East Tournament quarterfinal game against Cincinnati.

Here's the minutes played breakdown by game:

Missouri- Mazzulla 24, Truck 16

Morgan State (an outlier since backups were in the game with 10 minutes left)- Mazzulla 22, Truck 22

Big East Championship vs. Georgetown- Mazzulla 29, Truck 10

Big East Semis vs. Notre Dame- Mazzulla 23, Truck 17

Truck's injury will hurt in terms of depth, but it's obvious by the minutes he's been playing that Coach Huggins has felt more comfortable lately giving Mazzulla the lion's share of the playing time.

And not to kick a man when he's down, but Mazzulla is clearly the better pure point guard at this point despite the fact that his outside shooting game is virtually non-existent since his shoulder injury last season. He's a better defender, a better passer, makes better open-floor decisions, and is a better floor general than Bryant.




Ask the Dukies about Joe Mazzulla in March. 13/11/8 sound about right?


So while WVU will still have its primary point guard of late against Washington and any other potential opponent if WVU should advance, the team will have a depth issue when it's time to spell Mazzulla or if he should find himself in foul trouble. (Which wouldn't be unusual for Joe- he averages 6.22 fouls per 40 minutes, second on the team only to Cam Thoroughman's 7.15 fouls/40. And in case you're wondering, yes, that's higher than Wellington Smith's 5.47.)

The Mountaineers will most likely once again rely on the broad shoulders of Da'Sean Butler if Mazzulla needs to spend time on the bench. WVU played 4 games earlier this season with an all-forward starting lineup that saw Butler and Devin Ebanks serving as point-forwards, bringing the ball up the floor and setting up the Mountaineer offensive set.

The trouble with such an arrangement is that it forces Butler to expend energy as the primary ballhandler that takes away from his ability to also serve as the primary scorer for the Mountaineers. As Coach Huggins noted earlier in the year when this style was a necessity as opposed to a luxury, Da'Sean can't pass it to himself.

Into this void must step freshman guard Dalton Pepper or junior guard Casey Mitchell. Neither will see time as a primary ballhandler for the Mountaineers any time soon (those responsibilities will belong exclusively to Mazzulla, Butler, and Ebanks), but they may provide an opportunity to spell some of the responsibilities borne by the other overburdened Mountaineers, including defending the dynamic guard combo of the Huskies.

The majority of the needs created by Truck's absence will be ably handled by Joe Mazzulla, but the Mountaineers have other capable players to pick up the slack as well.

The first frenetic weekend of the NCAA Tournament is over, and the West Virginia Mountaineers are still standing after games against #15-seed Morgan State and a very frisky #10-seed Missouri Tigers squad.

The Mountaineers advance despite facing a Missouri team that was seemingly tailor-made to beat them with intense full-court pressure (and staggeringly ugly uniforms). Mountaineer fans certainly recalled previous games this season such as the game against Cleveland State in late December in which opposing teams gave the Mountaineers fits when pressing.

That trepidation was largely based on the fact that the Mountaineers' two primary guards, Joe Mazzulla and Truck Bryant, hadn't performed very well in those games.

That worry was ultimately put to rest by those same two players on Sunday.

Truck Bryant played one of his best games as a Mountaineer despite scoring only 4 points on 2-3 shooting. His ballhandling in the face of Missouri pressure that forced an average of over 20 turnovers a game during the regular season (best in the nation) proved to be the key to the Mountaineers' success in slowing down the pace of the game and running their offensive sets patiently. And this against a team that was known to produce "The Fastest 40 Minutes In Basketball."




The Mountaineers relied on solid play from their maligned guards to defeat Missouri. (AP Photo/David Duprey)


Truck turned the ball over once in 16 minutes of floor time, while Mazzulla turned it over only twice in 24 minutes. The Mountaineer team finished with 10 turnovers, the lowest total allowed by Missouri all season.

For their part, Mazzulla and Bryant understood what the perceived weakness was on their team:

“All we’ve been hearing about all year is how West Virginia doesn’t have any point guards,’’ Bryant said in this espn.com article. “All I can say is we’re winning, we’re No. 6 in the country, the No. 2 seed and we’re in the Sweet 16. We can’t be that bad.’’

Da'Sean Butler's ability to handle the ball certainly helped the Mountaineers break the Missouri press to the extent that they eventually backed out of it for large segments of the game. (I got a text from one friend saying, "28 minutes of hell?") Da'Sean complimented his ballhandling by also dropping 28 points on the Tigers and stepping up with clutch 12-13 shooting from the free throw line (despite the fact that he was probably exhausted from handling the ball so much while playing 38 minutes).




Go to the 1:25 mark to see Da'Sean drop it like it's hot.


The Mountaineers advanced to the second round by overcoming a heart-attack-inducing 10-0 early deficit to first round opponent Morgan State en route to a 79-60 win. Under normal conditions, WVU fans would've expected that a comeback was imminent and the team just needed to settle in, but after watching #2-seed Villanova need serious help from the refs just to advance past #15-seed Robert Morris and #3-seed Georgetown get run out of the building by lowly Ohio, everyone was certainly aware of the consequences of failure.

That game largely relied upon contributions from Kevin Jones (17 points, 8 rebounds, and still the Mountaineers' most consistent player from game to game) and Devin Ebanks (16 points, 13 rebounds) to pull away from the Bears.

After the weekends' games were finished, only two Big East teams (WVU and #1-seed Syracuse) remained of the 8 conference teams that received bids. But don't try to tell Bob Huggins that the Big East is down:

"Whoever doesn't think the Big East is a great league really shouldn't write sports,'' said Huggins in this article from USA Today. "They ought to do something else. Do cooking, or something. And by the way, you all are the ones who voted four of us in the Top 10 for the majority of the year."

Huggins went on to argue that the reason for parity between teams like Northern Iowa and teams from conferences like the Big East is due to the cyclical nature of college basketball as it relates to players from big time schools leaving early for the pros. While teams like UConn, Louisville, and Pitt lose guys to the NBA in droves like they did this offseason, teams like Northern Iowa keep their guys for 4 or 5 years and the team has a chance to gel together.

The Mountaineers now carry the Big East banner into the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years as they face the #11-seed Washington Huskies, who are coming off of upset wins over Marquette and New Mexico (as well as the Pac-10 Tournament Championship).

The Huskies destroyed the #3-seed New Mexico Lobos, 82-64 behind very solid play from swingman Quincy Pondexter and point guard Isaiah Thomas. (Interesting note- his father, a Lakers fan, named him after the Pistons' PG after losing a bet on the NBA Finals in 1989).

The Huskies look for any chance they can find to run and let their athleticism take over the game. They have high intensity on the defensive end and will run teams out of the building if given too many chances on the fast break.

The Mountaineers will need to be every bit as stingy with turnovers against UW as they were in the Missouri game to ensure a chance to advance to the Elite 8 for the first time since 2005.