Coming into this season, the two major sports at WVU (Football & Men’s Basketball) were known as two upper-tier BCS programs. The football team was fresh off of their 70 – 33 thumping of heavily-favored Clemson in the Discover Orange Bowl and winners of 3 BCS games over the last eight years. They also shared or outright won the Big East Conference in 6 of the last 9 years.
Basketball has done just as well in the last decade by making the Big East Tournament Championship as well as an Elite 8 appearance in 2005 along with a Big East Tournament Championship and Final 4 appearance in 2010. They have made the NCAA Tournament every year since 2005 except for 2007 when they won the NIT.
This long course of winning has been wonderful to the WVU faithful who witnessed the Mountaineers struggle through the mid to late ‘90’s and early 2000’s to find an identity. This is finally where we want to be…..Respectability.
To make things even better, the Big 12 comes calling for us to join their much more prestigious conference that is filled with national contenders that are in it year in and year out. I mean, Oklahoma and Texas are two teams that have so much history in college football, and then you look at the Kansas Jayhawks in basketball and think “Wow, we can now be mentioned with such a national powerhouse as Kansas”.
Everyone knew going into the year that the Mountaineer Football had a great shot at the Big 12 Title, if not the BCS Title game because of the three studs we had on offense. Everyone knew that Bob Huggins had a team that was itching to get back out on the court after the bad loss to Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament. Everything was going to be the same and it would be ok.
Did anyone stop and think, “What if they didn’t do well in the transitional first year in the Big 12?”
Did we really think we were going to strut into the Big 12 and continue dominating like we did in the Big East? The Big 12 is a whole different monster; it makes the Big East look like the Colorado School of Mines.
Yes, the Mountaineer offense had Tavon and Stedman and Geno, but did they have a defense? They put in a whole different defensive set after they let Jeff Casteel leave for Arizona and only had five non-conference games to really work the kinks out before battle. Even then they showed flaws that they couldn’t adjust and the “Monster” devoured them.
What made the Big 12 so different from the Big East was the Big 12 schools prepare much better for opponents through scouting and game film which got to Geno and Co. and really hurt the Mountaineers. After an expected 6-0 start, the wheels fell off and panic fell across the state of WV. It was a season that no one (surprisingly) expected.
Even after the down football season, everyone still had hope in the Mountaineer Men’s Basketball team. The infusion of JoCo and D1 transfers with Deniz Kilicli and Co. would surely be able to right the ship in this inaugural season.
Nope……So far everyone has been fooled again. At 9 – 9, the Mountaineers are in serious jeopardy of getting any kind of postseason berth. Even head coach, Bob Huggins said in his postgame remarks after a heartbreaking loss to Iowa State that this team is not designed for the Big 12; it’s designed for the Big East. Things can still get turned around for Huggie Bear and the Mountaineer Men, but it will take some serious work to get there.
As a fanbase, we can get pretty spoiled with the product we are given and we forget the big picture sometimes. No one is expected to make a transition from one conference to another and immediately make your mark (Unless you are Texas A&M and have a QB by the name of Johnny Heisman). It takes time to get the right recruits in to coincide with the new gameplan that fits the style of the conference.
It’s ok to be feeling this way after all the good that has come over the past few years but just remember this – Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Things WILL get better.
