MOUNTAINEERS.
The national-television spotlight will shine on West Virginia today as ESPN College GameDay makes its first visit to Morgantown.
The feature event will be the televised Big East men's basketball game between WVU and No. 6 ranked Louisville.
But the day-long festivities will begin hours before the scheduled 9 p.m. tip-off.
In fact, there will be two hour-long GameDay broadcasts from the WVU Coliseum floor from 11 a.m.-noon and from 8-9 p.m. leading up to the Big East game.
The national GameDay show will include analysts RECE DAVIS, JAY BILAS, DIGGER PHELPS, HUBERT DAVIS and BOB KNIGHT. The game broadcast crew will include DAN SCHULMAN and DICK VITALE.
Adding to the day-long event will be recognizing, at halftime of the game, the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Mountaineer team which finished as NCAA national runner-up.
Eleven members of that memorable squad plan to attend and be recognized. They are WILLIE AKERS, BOB CLOUSSON, BOB DAVIS, JAY JACOBS, PAUL MILLER, RONNIE RETTON, JIM RITCHIE, HOWIE SCHERTZINGER, NICK SERDICH, BOB SMITH and JERRY WEST.
The 1958-59 WVU team is the barometer for Mountaineers hoops tradition because it advanced the farthest of any WVU team in the NCAA Tournament.
That squad was coached by FRED SCHAUS and was led by West, a junior All-American whose bronze statue greets visitors to the main entrance of the Coliseum.
During that Golden Era of WVU basketball, the Mountaineers dominated Southern Conference play as well as home games in the old, downtown Fieldhouse.
The 6-foot-3 West, an in-state icon from East Bank High School - now part of the Riverside High consolidation - not only led the Mountaineers in scoring (26.6 points a game) but rebounding (12.3 per game) as well.
WVU opened the 1959 NCAA Tournament with a victory against Dartmouth in New York City before ousting St. Joseph's and Boston University in Charlotte. Those victories qualified the Mountaineers for the Final Four in Louisville, where they had to face the hometown Cardinals - the same opponent visiting Mo-Town tonight.
WVU stunned Louisville, 94-79, in the NCAA semifinals before taking on California in the title game. The Bears outlasted the Mountaineers, 71-70, to claim the brass ring.
And, tonight, that unforgettable WVU team will be featured during the national telecast of the Big East showdown against No. 6 ranked Louisville.
Basketball music will be played in Mo-Town today.
LARRY SHAW.
Is there a better high school coach in West Virginia than the Oak Glen wrestling mentor?
The Bears, last weekend, extended the state's all-time longest title monopoly to 13 season with another state Class AA-A championship.
And the crown came, for the second straight year, without any individual Bears titlists.
That tells us the Oak Glen program is solid, and deep enough, from top-to-bottom to prevail with an overall team effort.
And that effort starts with the 30-year head coach who has been at the Bears helm since the 1979-80 season.
Before the Bears' enrollment dropped the school to Class AA-A in wrestling, Shaw led the program to five state Class AAA runner-up spots.
That's 18 top two finishes in state events.
Amazing.
Enjoy the weekend.