The 5th seeded West Virginia Mountaineers will face a familiar Big East Tournament foe this afternoon. The 12th seeded Providence Friars and the Mountaineers are no strangers to each other in the world’s most famous arena Madison Square Garden. They’ve played each other in 4 of the past 6 seasons the Big East Tournament was played. That includes last year’s Mountaineer 1st round win where they set a Big East Tournament record for making the most threes in one game (17).

The Mountaineers will attempt to accomplish an unusual task, beat a Big East opponent three times in a year. Ironically enough that happened in 2005 with Providence. While it’s safe to say the Eers have locked up an NCAA Tournament spot being 33rd in the RPI there’s some haters out there who think that’s not good enough. The one making the loudest point is ESPN self-proclaimed college basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb. Gottlieb when asked about the Eers chances for a tournament berth did not speak to kindly about us. He stated that our resume and our team are nothing but a joke and a farce. Well move aside Corso we got a true Mountie hater in the house. Let’s make Gottlieb eat some crow and make him look like the punk hypocrite that he is. The tipoff is set for around 2:30 on ESPN. Good luck and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Mountaineers!