GETTING INSIDE

If West Virginia is going to go anywhere in the postseason, it is going to be because senior Da'Sean Butler is hitting shots.

But as the Mountaineers lined up on Senior Night to play Georgetown, Butler was in a terrible shooting slump.

He had hit 4 of 12, 2 of 10 and 3 of 12 in his three previous games, scoring 16, 14, nine and eight points.

Then, when needed the most and with all the emotion surrounding playing before his parents in his final home game, Butler snapped out of it.

It wasn't a strong shooting performance -- he hit only 7 of 16, including just 2 of 7 from 3-point range -- but he finished with 22 points.

"A weight came off my shoulders when that first 3 went through," Butler admitted. "That was cool. You should have seen my face."

With West Virginia heading to Villanova to close out the season Saturday, the Mountaineers are hoping Butler is out of his slump and ready to break loose.

WEST VIRGINIA 81, GEORGETOWN 68: West Virginia (23-6, 12-5) celebrated Senior Night in style, running around and over Georgetown (19-9, 9-8).

The Mountaineers had not done much in transition this year but really turned on the heat early against a Hoyas team playing without Austin Freeman, its leading scorer at 17 points a game. Freeman did not make the trip because of illness.

With G Truck Bryant running the break, WVU outscored Georgetown 24-4 in points off turnovers.

"The big thing was the easy baskets we had early, and we haven't gotten a lot of easy baskets this year. Truck was so much better; the key to the game was Truck," said coach Bob Huggins. "Truck ran the offense so much better for us today than what he has been doing." Bryant scored 11 points and had four assists, along with two steals.

Senior Da'Sean Butler celebrated Senior Night with 22 points, six rebounds, six assists and only one turnover.

By winning, the Mountaineers clinched a double bye in next week's Big East Tournament.

NOTES, QUOTES

--The victory Monday was WVU's 12th in Big East play, a school record.

--The crowd of 13,211 gave WVU a single-season attendance record in the Coliseum. The total for the season is 173,281, breaking the old mark of 170,762 set in 1981-82.

--Among those in the stands for the final home game of the season was Gov. Joe Manchin III.

--Wellington Smith is finally getting it.

He is a senior, closing in on his final games as a Mountaineer, and he is playing the best basketball in his career.

Smith, recruited by former coach John Beilein to play a shooting forward role, has been changed by Bob Huggins into a rebounder, but he has suddenly found the shot that Beilein cherished and has increased the intensity of his play. 
 

The change came in midseason when he found himself spending too much time on the bench, in part because his play lacked the intensity he needed and in part because he was just missing shots. He talked with his girlfriend and with his father and decided to put in the time and effort to make himself better.

As his game improved, so, too, did his appreciation of what he had and what it meant.

Then, after the Mountaineers lost last week to Connecticut, it all came together for him, what these four years in West Virginia had been all about.

That was when coach Bob Huggins gathered his team around him in the shadow of defeat and told them about his home state, West Virginia, and what Mountaineer basketball meant to the state. All of a sudden, Wellington Smith felt that he had millions of people riding with him.

"You come here, an 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kid, you don't understand that you are playing for the whole state," he said.

"There's just so many people this means so much to, people out there in the woods, putting up antennas so they can get the game."

--F Devin Ebanks came into the week with a streak of four double-doubles in his last seven games and was shooting 57.7 percent from the floor during that span.

--Bob Huggins is only the second coach in WVU history to win 20 games in each of his first three seasons. The other was George King from 1961 to 1963.

--WVU is one of only three schools to have a winning league record the last three seasons. The others are Pittsburgh and Marquette.

ON THE SPOT: G Casey Mitchell was recruited out of Chipola Junior College in Florida, where he led the nation's junior college scorers, to be an immediate help shooting from the outside. But for most of the season he has been a flop.

Entering Monday night's game against Georgetown, Mitchell was averaging just 4.0 points a game and was shooting 30.9 percent from the field.

Recently, however, he has been getting more and more playing time as his shot seems to be coming back. Against Villanova he scored 12 points earlier this month, and then against Georgetown he came in and hit two 3's and a basket, finishing with eight points.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "Fear." -- Coach Bob Huggins' explanation of how he gets his players to rebound so hard.

STRATEGY AND PERSONNEL

SEASON RECAP: West Virginia entered the season with high hopes and a national ranking, and nothing has happened to dampen that. The Mountaineers suffered a few disappointing defeats along the way but not enough to knock them out of the top 10 and now head into the season's final days hoping to earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As the season has worn down, so, too, had F Da'Sean Butler, whose scoring has fallen off, but his fellow senior, Wellington Smith, has been strong down the stretch.

PLAYER ROTATION: Usual Starters -- PG Truck Byant, F Devin Ebanks, C Wellington Smith, F Da'Sean Butler, F Kevin Jones. Key Subs -- PG Joe Mazzulla, C Deniz Kilicli, F John Flowers, F Cam Thoroughman.

GAME REVIEW:

West Virginia 75, Seton Hall 63
Connecticut 73, West Virginia 62
West Virginia 74, Cincinnati 68
West Virginia 81, Georgetown 68

GAME PREVIEW: at Villanova, Saturday, March 6

IN FOCUS: Villanova will want to get into transition in a guard-oriented offense.

ROSTER REPORT: --F Da'Sean Butler, who already is third all-time scoring at WVU, broke the school record for minutes played, his career total now at 4,163. The former mark was held by Johannes Herber from 2003-06.