Simultaneous celebrations kicked off Saturday after West Virginia earned a date with Bob Knight's Texas Tech team in Thursday's round of 16 of the NCAA tournament, leaving Mountaineers fans in a state of rarely seen basketball bliss. Some spray-painted "Sweet 16" on a hillside. One home flaunted a sign reading "Good Knight." The front page of the local newspaper displayed a picture of a teenager perched in a tree, one of 600 fans who met the team bus upon its return.
"The state," said Gary McPherson, senior director of the Mountaineer Athletic Club, "is at a standstill."
Not since 1998, the last time the school made the NCAAs, has West Virginia reached the round of 16. But many in the community say this season has been even more special because just two weeks ago the team was not expected to make the NCAA tournament unless it won one or two games in the Big East tournament.
West Virginia has a modest basketball history, aside from being the alma mater of former NBA great Jerry West. The Mountaineers were coming off an eight-victory season when Coach John Beilein arrived from Richmond and, with only seven scholarship players, won 14 games in 2002-03.
"If you were to say three years ago that this is the way this is going to work," Beilein said, "you're going to win 14, then you're going to go to the NIT [National Invitation Tournament] third round and then you're going to go to the Sweet 16, I would have said, 'What have you been smoking?' That's absolutely crazy."
But the Mountaineers (23-10) won three games in the Big East tournament, finishing as a runner-up to Syracuse, to earn an at-large invitation to the NCAA tournament. They beat Creighton and then upset second-seeded Wake Forest in an epic double-overtime, second-round game Saturday in Cleveland. With the seventh-seeded Mountaineers two wins away from the Final Four, fans have stopped at nothing to revel in their success.
At 1:30 a.m. Sunday, two people were working the counter at the McDonald's at a travel rest stop about halfway between Cleveland and Morgantown. The problem: Nearly 40 people stood in line, almost all clad in Mountaineer paraphernalia.
One person at the rest stop was Brent Solheim, a captain on West Virginia's 1997-98 team that reached the regional semifinals before losing to eventual national runner-up Utah. Solheim commuted from Cleveland back to Morgantown for work after night games on Thursday and Saturday. "You can tell people were excited," he said of the rest stop atmosphere. "A lot of people were just trying to stay awake."
Meantime, on the other side of the world in Israel, another captain from the 1997-98 team, Adrian Pledger, was following the score ticker on the Internet. When he learned of the final score, Pledger, who is playing basketball professionally overseas, immediately called his current teammates. "I've been bragging a lot," he said.
The area around campus has been buzzing as well. Kegler's Sports Bar has easily doubled its business this March, according to general manager Mike Ochsendorf. The cozy lounge, which legally accommodates 99 people, could have handled three times as much business, Ochsendorf said, had it been large enough.
"Three little old ladies came in Saturday like 10 minutes before tip-off," he said. "I was like, 'I don't want to sound rude, but there aren't any seats. People arrived four hours before the game to get a seat.' "
Larry Buckland, 29, a pastor at Morgantown's Sabra United and Highland Park Methodist Church, said the Wake Forest victory was addressed in Sunday's sermon, with one woman saying, "It is a lot more enjoyable here than in Winston-Salem." And no worries about Thursday's service: It will start earlier than usual so it won't conflict with the Texas Tech game in Albuquerque.
It's easy to forget that Beilein wasn't the first choice for the job. West Virginia nearly pried Bob Huggins away from Cincinnati before Huggins changed his mind. "I don't think too many people believed in the program," Solheim said of the perception three years ago. "A lot of people didn't think we could win. We proved that team chemistry, especially in college basketball, is very important."
Beilein returned nearly everyone this season from a team that reached the third round of the NIT. But league coaches predicted the Mountaineers would finish ninth.
A 10-0 start was followed by a dismal January, during which West Virginia lost five straight games and again appeared destined for the NIT. "We heard all that, 'Ah, they choked,' " said Beilein's son, junior guard Patrick Beilein. "I read those things, that we were one of the last four teams out of the NCAA tournament. I think that's what motivated us."
Part of the credit for West Virginia's March turnaround goes to Beilein's efficient Princeton-like offense, which utilizes players who can pass and shoot. Part falls to the character of the players he has. In January 2004, Beilein dismissed his best player, Drew Schifino, who clashed with Beilein about his involvement in the offense.
"You don't know how many talented players we have refused to recruit," John Beilein said, "because we didn't like their body language, their phone conversations, and the people that were involved in their recruiting. We tried to only get the people who were the right guys on the bus."
Added junior Mike Gansey, "We're what a team is."
No one embodies that quality more than Gansey, the hero of Saturday's game who scored 19 of his 29 points in the two overtime sessions. Gansey, who in high school was runner-up for Ohio's "Mr. Basketball" to LeBron James, transferred from St. Bonaventure after the highly publicized 2003 scandal in which the school played an ineligible player.
This month, he has become the undisputed fan favorite at West Virginia. Case in point: A billboard in front of Morgantown's Flying Fish & Co. market reads "Go WVU. Gansey for Pres.!" When Gansey walked into class Monday, the teacher and students gave him a standing ovation.
Gansey and roommate Patrick Beilein remained awake in their Cleveland hotel room until nearly 5 a.m. Sunday, re-watching "SportsCenter" highlights. Patrick Beilein was so overjoyed following the game that he did not take his uniform off until more than an hour afterward.
Said Gansey, "It's a fairy tale."
West Virginia wrestler Greg Jones said he thought it might be an omen that he won the third national championship of his career Saturday in St. Louis. Why? St. Louis hosts next week's Final Four. Said senior forward Tyrone Sally, "Right now, we can go all the way."
