MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University’s chances at earning the No. 2 seed in the Big East Tournament are as slim as were the chances Thursday night for Pitt’s Ashton Gibbs to hit a 3-point buzzer beater to defeat Providence, which is just what he did.
The Mountaineers and the Panthers are engaged in a battle for that No. 2 seed — which means you don’t have to play No. 1 Syracuse until the final — and seemed to be getting a leg up when Providence led Pitt by a point with just 3.5 seconds left to play.
However, a coaching decision by Providence’s Keno Davis backfired. Rather guarding the inbound pass, to make it tough, and defending Gibbs, Providence gave a free inbounds pass, allowing the Panthers to hit Gibbs on the move, giving him time to get to the 3-point line and launch. Afraid to foul, they backed off defending the shot and Gibbs hit it.
That means to get the No. 2 seed West Virginia must beat a desperate Villanova team, now No. 9 in the country, at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia while Pitt loses at home to lowly Rutgers, a highly unlikely occurrence since Pitt has lost only once at home this year. Beating Villanova is anything but a sure thing. When the two teams played on Feb. 8 the Wildcats beat WVU, 82-75, in Morgantown.
Villanova’s small, four-guard lineup gave WVU fits in that game. Villanova, led by Scottie Reynolds with 21 points and Corey Fisher with 17, shot 56.9 percent from the floor, including 45.5 percent from 3-point range.
That probably will not happen again.
“I think we are better defensively than we were then,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said.
The last two games in particular have been good for the Mountaineers, holding Cincinnati and Georgetown to 68 points, which seems to be the magic number for the WVU defense. This year the Mountaineers are 19-0 when holding teams to 69 or fewer points.
The way Huggins sees it, games like this in the Big East come down to three things.
“When good teams play, the team that hits its open shots, that makes its free throws and gets to the 50-50 balls usually wins,” he said.
Huggins believes one reason is that his team is fresh for this time of year.
“They’re as fresh as they’ve been in a long time,” he said, noting that that played on Monday and had a couple of days off.
“Oh, you’re going to have the bumps and bruises, the sprained fingers and toes, but by and large we’re fine,” Huggins said.
The Mountaineers would like to have a win so they can take a three-game winning streak into the Big East Tournament, playing for the first time on Thursday in the quarterfinal round after a double-bye.
Senior Da’Sean Butler will be playing his final regular season game against the team he lit up for 43 points last year. Villanova concentrated on Butler hard in the first meeting this year, stopping him with 12 points.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
