Everyone at Pitt must tip their hats to the school down Interstate 79 for its incredible Elite… Everyone at Pitt must tip their hats to the school down Interstate 79 for its incredible Elite 8 run.

West Virginia pulled off one of the better runs in tournament history, making it to the Elite 8 as a seven seed while knocking off No. 2 seed Wake Forest along the way.

How’d they do it?

They were a unified team. The players and coaches came together, and as result, the execution, offensively and defensively, was brilliant.

Even though, after grabbing a 20-point lead, they lost to Louisville in overtime in one of the better comebacks in tournament history, head coach John Beilein of West Virginia is very proud of his crew.

“We didn’t lose that game,” he said to the Post-Gazette. “My guys are winners tonight in every way except the final score.”

And they were winners for the season as well. This was a bubble-team before the Big East tournament. After a 10-0 start, West Virginia dropped seven of its next nine games. (They went 12-4 for the rest of the season, including tournament play.)

Placing the slump aside, this team knew when and how to win and in the tournaments were no exception. West Virginia upset Boston College and Villanova along the way to the Big East Championship game, where the Mountaineers ran out of gas and fell hard to the Syracuse Orange.

Their hard work in the Big East tournament earned them a seventh seed in the NCAA tournament as well as a first weekend of games played in Cleveland — a short 200-mile trek to the northwest for Mountaineer players and fans, compared to Pitt’s long 2,100-mile journey to Boise, Idaho.

It allowed them to have the slight home-court advantage when it came to upsetting the Demon Deacons in double overtime, 111-105.

West Virginia then went on to win against Texas Tech in the Sweet 16, leaving outsiders to ask two questions: How far will West Virginia go and how long will it be until there is nothing left to burn in Morgantown, W. Va.?

The first question was answered Saturday, and fortunately the latter part will not be known, at least this year.

As for how far this team will go in the future, Beilein spoke after the game about this team being a bubble-team again next year with new teams jumping into the Big East, making the trails to the tournament even rougher — Louisville being one of those new teams.

Even if this team doesn’t make the tournament next year, it will be remembered for a long time, especially in Morgantown. It’s a feel-good story that can be shared and passed down the line — the way all sports should be.

I know this because my phone rang several times during the Mountaineers’ incredible run. Every time it was one of my friends who had attended West Virginia and still holds the Mountaineers close to his heart.

I, too, was moved by the amazing upsets that West Virginia had pulled off, and I found myself rooting for them Saturday night, even though I had Louisville going to the Final Four in my bracket.

I was moved by the hard work of Mike Gansey, a junior-college transfer from St. Bonaventure, who scored 19 points in the two overtimes to defeat Wake Forest. The whole team came together and grabbed the attention of many, much like the Red Sox did with their World Series run — just without the extensive history.

Kevin Pittsnogle, Pitt’s favorite Mountaineer, also impressed me with the way he could come in and control the game, whether it was pulling down a rebound, assisting a teammate or even hitting the 3.

So here’s to West Virginia. This will probably be the last time you (Mountaineers) will ever hear that from me. Well, unless you poke your way into the Final Four next year, at which point I would proudly and promptly call the fire department for you to save your city — only because I want the Pitt-West Virginia rivalry to survive.

Jimmy Johnson is the sports editor of The Pitt News, and he can be reached at [email protected].