News: WVU on G'town

Our man in N.J., Ray Floriani, was at MSG covering the NIT finals, where WVU beat Clemson 78-73 (it wasn't that close). While most of their post-game press conference revolved around their big finish to the season (and their fine new t-shirts), they did take some time to discuss Georgetown's chances in the Final Four.

Georgetown will have an ardent fan, who is not a student nor alum, when they take the floor Saturday against Ohio State. The fan is actually an opponent, West Virginia coach John Beilein. Shortly after his Mountaineers captured the 70th NIT defeating Clemson 78-73, Beilein spoke of Big East pride, specifically Georgetown.

“There’s no question I’ll be rooting for Georgetown,” Beilein said. “We played three top ten teams one week and the one game we were never in was Georgetown, right guys?” Beilein’s latter remark was directed to senior Frank Young and freshman Da’Sean Butler who joined the Mountaineer coach in the media room.

“Georgetown is a terrific school, a great team and being a product of Jesuit education (Wheeling Jesuit ’75), I’ll be pulling for them,” Beilein added. “They are fabulous and are as an intelligent team as there is today.”

Young, who earned MVP honors with a game high 24 points in the final will also have a Hoya rooting interest. “I think the Big East winning is great for the conference and us,” Young said. “We got the NIT and I would love to see a sweep. We’ll be rooting for Georgetown but also the Rutgers women. It would be great to see the Big East have the NIT and both NCAA championships.”

Beilein deflected and media inquiries into the Michigan opening saying,” I just want to concentrate on this (NIT championship).” WVU fans feel that even though he might listen to overtures from Ann Arbor, he’ll probably (hopefully) stay in Morgantown. One fan noted, “He [Beilein] has a solid program in a conference [Big East] that is good as any in the country.” Stay tuned.