Powell

In winning Saturday’s regular season finale, 72-65, over visiting Central Florida, DeVries’ Mountaineers readied for the Big 12 conference tournament that began earlier this week in Kansas City.

West Virginia University will be the No. 8 seed in the 16-team tournament that finishes on Saturday.

The No. 8 seed received a first-round bye and joined play on Wednesday against the winner of the TCU versus Colorado game from Tuesday. Colorado just defeated the Horned Frogs on Saturday to finish off its sometimes-dismal season.

Should the Mountaineers have beaten either TCU or Colorado, it would then play top-seeded Houston in the quarterfinals.

Small

Houston was one of four teams to receive a double-bye into the quarterfinals, the others being Brigham Young, Texas Tech and Arizona.

To have any realistic chance of gleaning an at-large bid to the NCAA National Tournament, West Virginia had to get a win over Central Florida.

The nose-to-the-grindstone Mountaineers literally sprinted out to a 47-20 lead over the stunned Knights. But the rosy situation turned quickly, as the lead shrunk and then shrunk some more.

The Mountaineers made only 7-of-24 shots in the nail-biting second half. But the once-commanding lead was still intact at the end . . . and West Virginia had won nine of its last 11 games, to become once more a prime candidate for a “Big Dance” bid.

Javon Small, the Big 12’s co-scoring leader along with Central Flordia’s Keyshawn Hall, scored 25 points. Hall was severely limited in scoring by WVU’s Toby Okani. Hall could score only six points. Jonathan Powell, a freshman starter, also totaled 15 badly needed points for the Mountaineers.

Okani

Amani Hansberry had 18 points, as the WVU starters again played copious minutes.

The game was listed as a sellout — the crowd on game-day was announced as numbering around 12,500.

There will be 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Near the close of the regular season, West Virginia’s “strength of schedule” was ranked 45th in the nation — a fact that should not hurt the team’s chances of being selected for the national tournament field.

Regardless of what the powers-that-be choose to do, this has been a season of monumental recovery for WVU basketball — a season of rising from the ashes in a college atmosphere fraught with never-ending change and only guesswork to speculate about.

Hansberry

DeVries assumed control of a hectic situation where previous players had transferred out, were not asked back or left for various reasons and for various new homes. It could easily have been continued turmoil, but it wasn’t and DeVries can be thanked a thousand times for that.