Knowing that St. John was not going to go to the Big East Tournament next week not to mention they were playing in front of a sparse crowd at the world’s most famous arena you would think the West Virginia Mountaineers would stomp them all day. When WVU was up 23-12 with about 10 minutes left you’d think they could but leave it to the Johnnies to play with pride which is important in the playgrounds of NYC. It was that pride, led by coach Norm Roberts, that almost gave St. John’s an upset win and potentially spoiling WVU’s NCAA hopes which appeared locked after Monday’s win over Pittsburgh.

Enter Joe Mazzulla. Playing for most of the second half in place of the injured Darris Nichols he was outplayed defensively leading the Johnnies to make some important buckets near the end of the game. It was Mazz who fouled Malik Boothe with 5.5 seconds left with the score tied at 66. Boothe calmly drained both and with a St. John’s timeout someone to take charge. It was Mazzulla who dribbled through the full court press (even dribbling off his knee to cut through a double-team) to score a lay-up with .3 seconds left to tie the game at 68 and send the game to Overtime.

West Virginia woke up from the funk and made the free throws when they had to. In all they made 30 FOUL SHOTS. They made 12 of 19 free throws in OT while the Johnnies made only 2 of 7. For a spirited effort that St. John’s played primarily from Anthony “Baby Mase” Mason, Jr., who scored 17 but thankfully was fouled out within the first minute of OT, the Johnnies just couldn’t make a free throw to offset their unconscious three-point shooting which kept them in the game throughout.

Let’s also give credit to another awesome effort from Joltin’ Joe Alexander. Alexander scored 29 points, including scoring 11 of WVU’s final 13 points along with 10 rebounds. He made the foul shots when needed as he made 12 of 14 foul shots. He is becoming the go-to man the Eers need the most. In all Alexander in the past three games has scored 93 POINTS! Thanks in large part to him this budding NBA prospect has helped the Mountaineers seal the NCAA Tournament bid no matter what will happen in the Big East Tournament.

The opponent for the Eers in the first round on Wednesday will be determined by tomorrow night. UPDATE: With Syracuse defeating Marquette today at the Carrier Dome the West Virginia Mountaineers have clinched the fifth seed in this week’s Big East Tournament.  The tipoff for Wednesday will be roughly around 2:30pm against a yet to be determined opponent.  The Mountaineers finish the Big East campaign at 11-7 with an overall record of 22-9. Way to go Eers. You almost went from laying a big fat egg to going to the dance in two weeks. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOUNTAINEERS!