MORGANTOWN — If West Virginia was looking for some new incentive it got it out of the NCAA draw that took place on Sunday, one day after they rode on Da’Sean Butler’s shoulders to the Big East Tournament championship.
The Mountaineers were hoping for a No. 1 seed in the NCAAs, expecting nothing less than to be the first No. 2 seed.
Why not?
They had just swept through the Big East Tournament, possessed the No. 4 RPI in America and the No. 8 strength of schedule. They were riding high, not only having swept through the tournament but beaten Villanova in the regular season finale.
So, when they were relegated to a second seed, they were disappointed. And when you examined it, they had the third second seed, which put them even behind Villanova, also a No. 2 seed.
For the record, WVU is No. 2 in the East Region, where Kentucky is the top seed.
The Mountaineers make their NCAA Tournament debut in Buffalo on Friday against Morgan State, the No. 15 seed in the East region. The Bears, from Baltimore, play in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and were that conference’s champions with a 15-1 record, finishing overall with a 27-9 record.
Morgan State and West Virginia have played just one time, back in 1995-96 when Gale Catlett would schedule any team willing to come in and get beat up.
And that is just what Morgan State did, losing to WVU, 108-80, in the Coliseum.
“I thought statistically we were a No. 1 seed,” WVU Coach Bob Huggins admitted. “The disappointing thing is they say look at the full body of work. I thought our full body of work was a No. 1 seed, but I expected to get a No. 2 seed.”
However, he didn’t expect it to be the third No. 2 seed.
“I don’t understand that,” he admitted.
In some ways it could work for the Mountaineers, who are on a high and need to find new incentive as they head into the NCAA Tournament.
“We weren’t even the No. 1 No. 2 seed,” said guard Joe Mazzulla, who had a marvelous final game in the Big East Tournament, hitting his free throws and being credited with seven assists and no turnovers. “We will use that for motivation.”
And no one knows what to expect from Morgan State, a team coached by Todd Bozeman, a veteran who once coached the Cal Golden Bears. Bozeman left coaching 13 years ago after sanctions were handed down against him in Berkeley in 1997.
Bozeman was once the fair-haired boy of college coaching, at 29 the youngest coach ever to advance to the Sweet 16. He replaced Lou Campanelli as head coach at Cal when he was fired 10 games into the 1993 season and pulled off an upset of two-time defending NCAA champion Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
However, after admitting to having paid $30,000 to the family of Cal player Jelani Gardner, the NCAA handed down an eight-year show cause ban — known in basketball circles as “the death penalty”, only half jokingly.
It became one of the great scandals in college basketball history, multiplied by rumors that he had undermined Campanelli while his assistant. He was cleared by the National Association of Basketball Coaches of that charge.
His 63-35 record became 35-63 after the NCAA imposed forfeits and Bozeman wound up selling pharmaceuticals and doing some TV commentary.
The job he got was hardly a good one, Morgan State coming off a 4-26 season, but he turned the record around.
His first Morgan State team went 13-18, then they won 22, 23 and now 27 games.
Huggins said he knew Bozeman but did not know much about his team.
Rest assured, he will by Friday.
If WVU gets past Morgan State, as expected, it will play the winner of the Clemson-Missouri matchup and face a team that likes to press for 40 minutes.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
