WVU fans #1

 

12,097 braved weather, wrecks to get there

 

The most incredible performance Tuesday night, when #11 West Virginia upset #1 Kansas, 74-63, was that 12,097 made it to WVU Coliseum to see the game.

 

This on a night when the weather caused 55 traffic accidents in five hours by 7:30 p.m., shortly after the tipoff, on icy roads and whiteouts. Fans kept showing up as the game progressed.

 

Both WVU Athletic Director Shane Lyons and Coach Bob Huggins praised the fans who took on the wintry blast to get there.

 

Huggins called it an amazing thing that that many risked the traffic to support their Mountaineers.

 

Dozens of students were stranded at Monongalia County schools or on buses several hours after school was let out on Tuesday.

 

Several West Virginia University basketball players who were stuck in rush-hour traffic ran on foot to get to the WVU Coliseum in time for the game.

 

The Kansas team, lodged three miles from the WVU Coliseum, got nowhere for an hour till West Virginia State Police and snowplows got them through.

 

Lyons posted:

 

“Thank you Morgantown and Mountaineer Nation for braving Tuesday’s challenging conditions to make it to the game to support our basketball team and help it achieve an historic victory. 

 

“We know the weather and road conditions presented obstacles to the community, even without the complicating factor of thousands of folks trying to get to the Coliseum for a nationally televised game against the No. 1 team in the nation.

 

”It was not feasible, nor even possible, to cancel or postpone the game as some have wondered or suggested, but this community came together in true Mountaineer determination to make it all work. It’s one reason Mountaineers are special.”

 

WVU responded by causing 22 Kansas turnovers. The Jayhawks are noted for super shooting and outstanding ball-handling. The shooting was still good Tuesday, but not the ball-handling.

West Virginia Illustrated Matt Hauswirth covered the same topic, but in more depth.

Read and enjoy:

 

Mountaineer Nation Arrives When WVU Needs Them Most

by Matt Hauswirth

West Virginia Illustrated

MORGANTOWN -

It does not come as a surprise, nor should it.

Throughout the country, West Virginia fans are known as loyal, passionate, and above all, dedicated.

Back on Thanksgiving Day, a Las Vegas-area reporter asked Bob Huggins about WVU’s loud fan section during the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational, to which he offered up an authentic response.

“We’ve got great fans,” Huggins said almost instantaneously. “They travel. The great thing about our fans is that they don’t necessarily have to be West Virginia University graduates, they’ve just got to be West Virginians. Everybody in our state grows up rooting for the Mountaineers. So people who went somewhere else or moved away somewhere else, it never leaves you.”

Huggins made it a point to inform the out-of-towner about just how much Mountaineer Nation means to the program, especially to travel out west during the holiday break.

But what we saw Tuesday night from inside the WVU Coliseum was an entirely new level of loyalty, passion and dedication.

WVU fans were late arriving for the Mountaineers’ much-anticipated battle with No. 1 Kansas, but there was a reason behind it.

Mother Nature.

A mixture of snow, wind and chilly temperatures flipped the city of Morgantown upside-down on a day where it needed to be rightside-up. The Kansas Jayhawks were in town, possibly college basketball’s most storied program and currently the nation’s top-ranked team.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature does not plan around your schedule. Rather, it makes you plan around its schedule. The dangerous weather caused traffic jams unlike anything the city has ever seen, creating accidents, road closures and a nationally ranked college basketball team looking up at a vastly unfilled arena.

But as we all soon discovered, the fans were well on their way.

“Let me start by saying that for 12,000 people to show up here, on this night, is unbelievable,” Huggins declared after the game. “I mean, that’s fighting through some things. I know there were people still coming in during the second half. I know it was hard for you guys to get here. It was hard for me to get here. It would’ve been very easy for people just to go watch it on TV.

“I’m very appreciative for those 12,000,” he added.

Lets be honest, if you were present at the game, you know the crowd had a monumental role in WVU pulling out the victory. Every loose ball, every whistle, every basket – even every free throw – WVU fans were as into the game as the actual players were.

Those very same players fed off the crowd’s energy.

“That’s what it’s about, being a Mountaineer,” WVU junior forward Devin Williams explained. “It’s the first day back at school, really, and now everybody can enjoy themselves the right way. It’s our season, and we just want to go out there and play as hard as we can, and give what the fans want.”

“Yeah, yeah,” WVU sophomore guard Jevon Carter responded when asked about Tuesday’s atmosphere being the loudest he’s ever seen in Morgantown. “This gym definitely got loud today. That’s exactly how we like it.”

Devin Williams seems to be a guy who gets it. He’s never too high and never too low. He’s a young man who preaches humbleness after every win or loss, and in his junior season, he completely understands that the fans are as important to their overall success as anything else out there. The fans want a winner, and when the Mountaineers have played Kansas in Morgantown, more times than not, the fans have grown accustomed to winning results.

Tuesday’s home win over the Jayhawks marked WVU’s third straight, and first victory over an AP No. 1 program since 1983. There’s no question the win meant a great deal, but Huggins fully understands the win would never have been possible if not for the fans, which continue to exercise that very same loyalty, passion and determination for WVU Basketball.

“I think we had maybe a thousand people that couldn’t make it or didn’t make it. I think there were over 13,000 tickets sold. The students were great. The PRT [Personal Rapid Transit] broke down. We had a bunch of them walk from downtown. To my recollection, that’s never happened,” Huggins said with astonishment.

The Mountaineers entered the week with an AP ranking of No. 11 and USA Today Coaches Poll spot at No. 10. With a win over No. 1 Kansas, WVU has a chance to raise even more eyebrows if it were to win on the road at No. 2 Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon.

But before the team shifts its attention to the weekend, they will enjoy Tuesday’s outcome, which was seen being celebrated alongside a couple thousand fans on the court after the game.

The truth is, when the Mountaineers needed its fans the most, they were there.

WVU will be looking to lean on that the rest of the season, as plenty of important home games remain against Iowa State, Baylor and Oklahoma, among others.

But in the meantime, Huggins has a brilliant idea for the city of Morgantown moving forward.

“The city takes three dollars and something out of our checks every week,” he said with a sense of humor. “I mean, they can take my three bucks and maybe get some salt. I think that would help. Honestly, we’ve got to do a better job. Everybody knew it [the snow] was coming. Why aren’t we a little better prepared for it?”

Still, even with the weather and traffic issues, Mountaineer Nation showed up when it counted.

Their prize? A victory over America’s best team.