ESPN Men's Basketball

NEW YORK -- There isn’t a whole lot of pretense to Bob Huggins.

He is honest, sometimes cuttingly so. He can be gruff. He can be rough.

He is loyal and fiercely protective of those he cares for and equally dismissive of the people for whom he has no use.

He is a man made rich by the spoils of basketball, but a man who at his core remains the kid who grew up in Midvale, Ohio: “500 people, two stoplights, nine bars,’’ as he describes it.

Huggins doesn’t suffer fools or spend a whole lot of time wishing for what could have been or lamenting what wasn’t.

This is a guy who culled his life’s motto from a ride in a pickup truck.

“I got in the truck with this guy one time and I looked and he didn’t have a rear-view mirror,’’ Huggins said. “I said, ‘You don’t have a rear-view mirror.’ He said, ‘I don’t back up. We’re only going forward, son.’ And that’s kind of how I’ve lived myself.’’

But even Huggins admits that he would take a moment and rewind if his Mountaineers, who topped Notre Dame, 53-51, are able to capture the Big East tournament title.

It’s been 26 years since West Virginia brought home a conference title of any kind (that was during the Mountaineers run in the Atlantic 10), and for Huggins, who was born in Morgantown and graduated from the university, bringing the hardware home as the native son would hold a special meaning.

“I’ve been telling these guys all year that it’s neat to come back and see the banners that you were responsible for hanging; it gives you a reason to want to come back,’’ Huggins said. “I know when I was at Cincinnati it meant a lot to the guys to come back and see them there on that far wall. I’ve been telling them about that since the beginning of the season.’’

The Mountaineers, who joined the Big East in 1995, will be playing for the tournament championship for the second time in school history. They lost to Syracuse in 2005.

To win they’ll only have to stop Georgetown, the team with a record seven Big East tournament championships.

“They’re really good. Extremely well coached,’’ Huggins said of Georgetown. “You know, it’s the Big East. You look around the league and who do you play that doesn’t have great players? Everybody has great players.’’

WVU does as well. His name is Da’Sean Butler. Almost certainly either he or Georgetown’s Greg Monroe will take home the tournament’s most outstanding trophy tomorrow night. Both have been dominant -- and more, the absolute lifeblood of their teams.

Against Cincinnati, Butler hit the banked-in, buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer. Against Notre Dame his play may have been less dramatic but no less heroic. In a game in which offense was at an absolute premium, Butler scored 24 points, nabbed seven rebounds and cashed in three assists. He was the lone player the Irish couldn’t contain.

And even he almost wasn’t enough.

West Virginia’s 1-3-1 zone flustered the Irish into poor shooting -- Notre Dame shot only 34 percent for the game, not good enough when a team plays the way the Irish have decided to play.

But the Mountaineers didn’t do enough to put the Irish away for good. Down 10 with five minutes to play, Notre Dame rallied and had a chance to win the game on a play that eerily mirrored Butler’s final shot against Cincinnati.

Except for one critical difference. Tory Jackson’s 3 came up short and the Mountaineers, in need only of a 2, couldn’t corral the rebound before the clock expired.

“Either you win or lose on that one,’’ Butler said of Jackson’s shot. “I just prayed he didn’t win.’’

He didn’t and now the Mountaineers just might win it all.

And maybe their forward-thinking coach will even allow for a little reflection.

NEW YORK -- Notre Dame coach Mike Brey was sitting around at a team dinner, talking to his assistant coaches about what coaches always talk about – basketball.

Anthony Solomon, who played on the Virginia team that nearly stunned Phi Slamma Jamma Houston in the Final Four, started talking about the Cavaliers famed run from lousy regular season to the brink of a national championship in 1984.

Brey, listening with half an ear, suddenly piped up.

“I said, ‘Anthony, what was the score of that game?’’ Brey said.

The answer -- 49-47 -- spurned a seismic shift in the Notre Dame basketball landscape that has taken the Irish from Big East afterthought to Big East beast.

“I went to sleep that night and just thought, ‘We’ve got to do something different,’’ Brey said of his Solomon-inspired epiphany. “We’ve had burn – where we run the clock in the final four minutes – in our playbook forever. So I just told the guys, ‘We’re going to extend burn to 40 minutes.’’

The burn has scorched opponents. Since Brey put the brakes on the usually run and gun, up and down Irish, Notre Dame has ripped off five wins in a row and gone from not being in the NCAA Tournament conversation to playing for a seed. The Irish defeated Seton Hall 68-56 Wednesday night.

Brey’s courageous change -- (Yes, courageous. Asking a veteran team to change its style with a few weeks left in a season, going against every gene in a coaching DNA takes guts.)-- was borne out of desperation more than invention. With Luke Harangody on the bench with an injured knee and the Irish with a pedestrian 17-10 record, Brey knew he had to do something drastic.

“Someone once asked Bill Walsh if he dreamed up with the West Coast offense playing with salt shakers and he said, ‘I put in the West Coast offense because I wanted to survive,’’ Brey said. “Well it was basically the same for us.’’

That it has worked so well is a credit to the Irish players.

“I thought he was crazy,’’ Tory Jackson said of Brey’s plan.

But Jackson laughed when he said it. The players saw the need to make a meaningful change in style and rather than balk, they went all in. Blessed with a good collection of scorers who can finish a play, the Irish have willingly made their offense more deliberate, ticking off passes in a halfcourt set rather than blazing at full throttle.

The more methodical offense has simultaneously cured Notre Dame’s longstanding Achilles heel: its defense.

Basketball isn’t complicated. You can’t score if you don’t have the ball. By holding the ball, the Irish are limiting their opponents’ possessions. During this five-game streak, the Irish have allowed an average of 56.4 points.

In its Big East opening round game, Notre Dame got the best evidence that its new plan is working. A month ago, Seton Hall scored 49 points in the first half against the Irish.

On Wednesday night, the Pirates mustered 56 ... for the game.

“A couple of weeks ago, we were dead in the water,’’ Harangody said. “Now look at us. We’re one of the best stories in college basketball.’’

Perhaps a story with yet another chapter to write. Harangody had three restorative practices before the Seton Hall game, rebuilding his confidence while restoring his conditioning. His first half 15-point, 9-rebound effort ignited the Pirates and broke open a tight game.

After playing 24 minutes, he said his body felt good and he was more than ready for Notre Dame’s quarterfinal match with Pittsburgh.

“Going into this game and especially the Marquette game, my confidence wasn’t at the level it is now,’’ Harangody said. “Right now I feel like I started to get back the swagger I had before the injury.’’

Purdue has a chance to show the NCAA tournament selection committee what kind of team it is without Robbie Hummel in its final three games.

Notre Dame has already proven that it can win without Luke Harangody. Is the selection committee paying attention? It should be.

Harangody, the Irish's top scorer and the 2008 Big East Player of the Year, suffered a hyperextension/bone bruise of his right knee in a loss at Seton Hall on Feb. 11. The Irish fell flat by one at home against St. John’s three days later.

But then something happened at Louisville. The Irish were right there to beat the Cardinals before falling by two in double overtime on Feb. 17. They followed that by beating Pitt handily at home and stunning Georgetown by 14 in Washington D.C. on Saturday. If you toss in a two-point win over West Virginia (with Harangody on Jan. 9) then the Irish may have a tournament-worthy body of work within the Big East -- with him and without him.

"How many teams have three wins against top 12 teams?" Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said by phone after returning to South Bend, Ind., Saturday night. "We've obviously proven we can play without him. We pass the eye-ball test."

Brey said he and his staff talked about how similar Notre Dame's situation is with Purdue.

"We've had to prove it now for three weeks and won two amazing games," Brey said.

The Irish (19-10, 8-8) don't have resume-building wins in nonconference play. And Brey knows that not all Big East records are created equal. But if the Irish can at least split their final two games (against Connecticut and at Marquette) to finish 9-9 in league play, then they may be hard to turn down, especially with the amount of quality wins they would likely have without Harangody.

"If we're 9-9 we would thoroughly be in the picture, and then go to New York City and see what we can do," Brey said. "It's a great example of what could happen in one week in the Big East and how your fortunes can change."

Brey said that he's extremely hesitant to put Harangody back on the court. There is still discomfort in his knee and Brey said the fear is it could lead to a situation where he might require microfracture surgery.

"It's less than 50-50 that he would play Wednesday [against Connecticut] on senior night,’’ Brey said. "And if he can't play Wednesday then he won't play Saturday. We're not going to mess with this. He's done so much for us already. The reality is that we have played our butts off without him and we're prepared to do it again if that's the case."

The Irish have locked down defensively without Harangody. Brey won't come out say as much, but he did admit that the team's defense has improved. He also said that the Irish have slowed down offensively.

"I wanted us to limit the possessions in the game," Brey said of playing without Harangody. "I wanted us to be overly patient. I didn't want us to have to guard as many possessions. The longer offensive possessions, the better we can shoot."

Brey said the Irish are also playing with experienced players on the perimeter like Tory Jackson, Jonathan Peoples and Ben Hansbrough. Notre Dame has also benefitted from the shooting of Tim Abromaitis, whom Brey is calling one of the best fresh faces in the Big East, as well as getting contributions from Carleton Scott, Tyrone Nash and Jack Cooley.

"We're a little bit better defensively and offensively, we're more efficient," Brey said. "I can't say this is completely out of left field, but I'm a little bit surprised. I'm not shocked. I still thought we had good personnel.

"We were hoping that we could make our own luck and that's what we've done," Brey said. "We're thrilled to be in the discussion without Luke Harangody. We've put ourselves back in position."