The news that West Virginia has reached a $20 million settlement to leave the Big East Conference this year means that the school’s basketball team has only six more regular season games left in the conference.
Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers will play Louisville Saturday in the first of their final half dozen games before the school joins the Big 12 July 1.
“This is our third straight year that we have come to West Virginia,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino said last week. “I always request it every year. Generally you would see in the Big East that somebody would come back to you the following year, but [Big East Commissioner] John Marinatto’s a dear friend and I always tell him, ‘Look, don’t let West Virginia come to Louisville. I’d like to visit one more time.’
“And now it adds extra meaning because they’re going into the Big 12 so it will be the last time we play against each other.”
After Louisville, West Virginia has games at Pittsburgh (Feb. 16), at Notre Dame (Feb. 22), home for Marquette (Feb. 24) and DePaul (Feb. 28) and at South Florida (March 3).
The Big East Tournament runs March 6-10 at Madison Square Garden.
Kevin Jones, the presumptive Big East Player of the Year from Mount Vernon, N.Y., said last fall the league wouldn’t have the same “feel” without West Virginia.
“It’s not going to really affect me or Truck [Bryant], but I just feel sorry for my teammates and the players that it will affect in the future,” Jones told SNY.tv at Big East media day.
“Of course I will be coming and watching games and watching games on TV, but it just won’t have that same feel if it wasn’t the same Big East that I played in.”
Mount Vernon coach Bob Cimmino echoed similar feelings. He sent Jones and current West Virginia freshman guard Jabarie Hinds to West Virginia and then enjoyed seeming them return to Madison Square Garden, Seton Hall and Rutgers.
Now he’ll have to travel to Big 12 territory to see Hinds play live beginning next year.
“Of course, I’m like everybody else out here,” Cimmino told SNY.tv earlier this year. “I’m mourning the disintegration of the great Big East that I grew up with. To this day, I think it was the best league that there ever was so it hurts.”
For the recruits signed to play at West Virginia beginning in 2012, they will never know what it’s like to play in the Big East or at the Garden.
Elijah Macon is a senior power forward at Huntington (West Va.) Prep signed to play with West Virginia next year.
“He didn’t really care regardless of what conference they were going in,” Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford, whose team meets St. Anthony Saturday in the PrimeTime Shootout at Roselle Catholic High School, told SNY.tv earlier this year. “He picked West Virginia for their style of play and I think it fits him very well.”
Fulford believes the school had to make the move to the Big 12 for football, basketball be damned.
“Being from here, obviously they needed to make a move for football and the Big 12 is going to be a better conference for West Virginia from a football standpoint,” Fulford said. “I think they needed to take a chance to see where the basketball would take them.”
