My Thanks To The Women Of West Virginia

By: Kevin Meacham

Posted: 2/28/07

Many of you, I imagine, will be spending your spring break in some warm, tropical locale. Perhaps you'll be at home for a nice week off, or perhaps you'll be risking the various diseases one can find in Mexico.

As for myself, I'll spend most of the week in Hartford, watching every game the West Virginia women's basketball team plays in the Big East tournament.

Technically, I'll be there covering UConn's heavily-favored squad most likely roll through the opposition. That's my job.

It will be my pleasure to watch the Mountaineers play, as sort of a thank you for a little heads-up they gave me about a year ago. At the 2006 Big East tournament, as the No. 12 and lowest seed, West Virginia made an incredible run to the championship game, losing by six to UConn in a tense final.

It was a four-day stretch I'll never forget - partly because something like this had never happened before in the Big East and partly because it reminded me why I love sports so much.

The specific moment I'm thinking of is one of those moments that, if you love sports as much as I do, you can't help but smile at.

The scene: unheralded West Virginia, a bunch of young, virtually-unknown players with nothing to lose, on the verge of upsetting No. 1 seed - and undefeated Big East regular-season champion - Rutgers in the semifinals.

Of course, there's no love lost between the Scarlet Knights and UConn fans, who were packing the Hartford Civic Center for UConn's semifinal later that night.

During a TV timeout, as the Mountaineers' pep band begins playing their fight song, the Mountaineer mascot tries to fire up the small contingent of WVU fans in the building. Slowly, the rest of the crowd catches on and seconds later, 15,000 people are clapping in unison with a fight song they'd likely never heard before, lending support to players they couldn't name from a school with which they had nothing in common.

That is the essence of college sports - the triumphant band, the energized mascot, the electric crowd and, of course, the Cinderella story. It's enough to give me chills to this day.

The 2005-2006 Mountaineers were a true underdog story. They came into Hartford with a record of 12-15, 4-12 in the conference. They barely made the Big East tournament after losing star Meg Bulger to a knee injury early in the season. They were just another team to be swallowed up by the bigger fish of the conference.

Then the Mountaineers beat No. 5 seed Louisville in the tournament's first game, a generally-uninteresting game in front of a sparse Saturday midday crowd. Another low-scoring, tough-to-watch victory over No. 4 St. John's followed. West Virginia's 2-3 zone, designed to slow down offense, worked likes a charm despite producing ugly basketball.

Still, this was just your usual tournament shocker - the feel-good story which pulls off one big upset before bowing out to the real contenders.

At least it was until the following day. To the shock of just about everyone, Rutgers came tumbling down at the undermanned, undersized Mountaineers. You could feel the joy as they celebrated the defeat of the Goliaths from New Jersey, you could see it in the players' eyes as they beamed during postgame press conferences and you hear it as they sprinted to their locker rooms from the court.

The story came to a heartbreaking end in a narrow loss to UConn in the finals, which dropped the Mountaineers to 15-16, ineligible for a bid to the women's NIT. They ended up six points short of the NCAA Tournament and their season came to an abrupt end.

The standing ovation they received from the pro-UConn crowd during the trophy presentations was something to behold, if not much consolation.

A year later, Bulger hasn't played thanks to another knee injury. However, the Mountaineers' return their entire team from last year's memorable run, and they are 20-9, 11-5 in the Big East. That makes them the No. 4 seed, meaning a rematch with UConn is very possible.

I plan on sitting somewhere near West Virginia's band and mascot Sunday at noon, when the Mountaineers take on either Louisville or St. John's - either one presenting a rematch and memories of 2006. It's my way of tipping my cap and saying thanks.

Kevin Meacham's column appears every Wednesday. He can be reached at kevin.meacham@uconn.edu