WV Fan Latest Posts
|
15 March 2010
MORGANTOWN - Da'Sean Butler and his teammates sat in a hotel ballroom Sunday evening hoping for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
They didn't get it.
In truth, though, that might be for the best. Because as it turns out, the Big East tournament champion Mountaineers were actually snubbed beyond just the No. 1 seeds, dropping all the way to the third No. 2 seed in the tournament.
Talk about incentive.
"It's really not that big a deal,'' Butler said. "Now we just have to prove that we deserved to be a No. 1 seed.''
Or at least the top No. 2 seed.
"It's just like my freshman year when we were the last team left out [of the NCAA tournament field],'' Butler said. "We went into the NIT with a chip on our shoulders and something to prove. I think we have something to prove again.''
When the pairings were announced Sunday night, West Virginia was placed as a No. 2 seed in the East Regional. The Mountaineers (27-6) were assigned to the Buffalo first-round site and will face No. 15 seed Morgan State (27-9) on Friday. The game will be the first of the day, tipping off at 12:15 p.m. at HSBC Arena.
If West Virginia wins that game, it would stay in Buffalo for a Sunday game against the winner of the first-round matchup between No. 7 seed Clemson (21-10) and No. 10 seed Missouri (22-10). The survivor there moves on to the Sweet 16 site at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. The top seed in the region is Kentucky, while the No. 3 is New Mexico and the No. 4 is Wisconsin. If the higher-seeded teams all win - which, of course, seldom happens - the Sweet 16 matchups would be WVU-New Mexico and Kentucky-Wisconsin.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins wasn't complaining about the matchups because he figures most of the time that's just the luck of the draw. And, as he said last week, often times the look of the draw can change dramatically from one round to the next because of the inevitable upsets.
Still, Huggins was miffed that his team slipped all the way to the third No. 2 seed after seemingly putting itself in contention for a No. 1 seed with a Big East tournament championship. But Kansas State was the top No. 2 seed and Villanova slipped in as the second No. 2 ahead of the Mountaineers. That despite West Virginia's RPI ranking of No. 4 and the No. 3 strength of schedule in the country. Kansas, Kentucky, Duke and Syracuse were the four No. 1 seeds, in that order, with respective RPI rankings of 1, 2, 3 and 5.
