Big East Tournament - Semifinal No. 2

Basketball fans who have gathered inside New York's Madison Square Garden this past week for the night sessions at the 2010 Big East Tournament have not witnessed very elegant basketball, but they sure have gotten more than their fair share of excitement and late-game drama. The West Virginia Mountaineers have been centrally responsible for providing ample suspense to Big East ticketholders, and because of their defensive skills, they're now one win away from their first-ever Big East Tournament championship.

It's really rather remarkable when you think about it a bit: Over the past four days of Big East basketball inside The World's Most Famous Arena, the final game of the day has always come down to the wire. On Tuesday night, Cincinnati scraped by Rutgers in the final game of the day, 69-68. On Wednesday night, the Bearcats - still alive in the tournament - clipped Louisville, 69-66, in another late show that ended near midnight in the Big Apple. On Thursday, West Virginia joined Cincy in creating some late-night basketball theater on Broadway by edging the Bearcats, 54-51, on Da'Sean Butler's remarkable banked-in three at the final buzzer. That pulse-pounder also ended a long four-game session of basketball inside America's foremost hoops mecca.

Given this string of closely-contested grinders, with no teams touching the 70s on the scoresheet, was it really any surprise that West Virginia - evidently taking the baton from the Cincinnati team it subdued on Thursday - would immerse itself in another New York street fight with a newly flinty foe?

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish entered the big city with some measure of doubt surrounding their NCAA Tournament hopes, but wins over Seton Hall and Pittsburgh erased any and all uncertainty from their NCAA profile. Notre Dame took the court in this semifinal stage with the assurance of a tourney ticket, and a team that's learned how to play rugged slowdown basketball - with defense and ball possession becoming newly important aspects of gameday strategy - played with the confidence one would expect from an NCAA-worthy squad.

The only problem for coach Mike Brey's resurgent roster - which has soared to Tournament-deserving status even while its star, Luke Harangody, has seen his minutes decrease - is that West Virginia knows how to play slowdown halfcourt basketball even better than the Irish do. This truth was borne out, albeit barely, in the Big East's second semifinal, another late show in which drama was never lacking.

Oh, this was not an artful encounter by any stretch of the imagination. In a span of four minutes and 26 seconds midway through the second half, both teams combined - yes, combined! - to score a total of just three points. Both ballclubs put on their hard hats, working with tremendous passion but also shielding themselves from the bricks that so dangerously plummeted from the rims and risked injuring somebody on the floor. This would not be a game won with offense; the better defensive team would prevail in this Friday night fistfight.

West Virginia hardly landed a knockout blow, but the Mountaineers were the ones left standing.