Mountaineer Memories: Top 10 wins of the Gale Catlett Era

These 10, though, stand out above all the rest.

10. Orange Crushed — Catlett was a thorn in the side of Syracuse’s legendary coach Jim Boeheim, four times leading his Mountaineers to a win over a ranked Orange squad. Perhaps the most impressive came on Feb. 17, 2001, when Boeheim’s boys were ranked No. 10 in the land. WVU was 14-8 but had already lost inside the Carrier Dome and had dropped three of its last five, including blowouts at the hands of Pitt and Georgetown. At 19-5, Syracuse probably wasn’t expecting much of a challenge when it came to Morgantown, but that's exactly what it found. DeShaun Williams and Damone Brown combined for 38 points for the ‘Cuse, but WVU kept pace with 20 points and 12 rebounds from big man Calvin Bowman and 15 from the Belington Bomber, Josh Yeager. The Mountaineers led 35-26 after a low-scoring first half and then held one, as Syracuse pushed the tempo in the second half. A crowd of 12,389 watched WVU outscore the Orange 52-50 after the break on its way to an 87-76 win.

9. Tournament Success — In his third season at WVU, Catlett’s Mountaineers advanced to the semifinals of the NIT Tournament, but it really made noise in year No. 4, when WVU finished 13-1 in Atlantic 10 play and earned a spot in the “Big Dance.” The fifth-seeded Mountaineers drew North Carolina A&T in the opening game at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum in Utah, and the Aggies probably wished they had stayed at home. Six WVU players scored in double figures, led by 20 from Russel Todd, as the Mountaineers opened up a 44-32 advantage at the half and ran away with a 102-72 victory. Quentin Freeman scored 15 points off the bench, and Greg Jones added 14 for a WVU team that won its first NCAA Tournament game since 1963.

8. A-10 Champs – Not only was Temple a huge rival for the Mountaineers in the 1980s, the 22-7 Mountaineers were not guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Tournament when they met the Owls on March 12, 1983, inside the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. WVU, the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament’s West bracket, had taken down Penn State and West No. 1 St. Bonaventure to advance to the tournament semifinals against the No. 3 seed from the East, John Chaney’s Owls. Terence Stansbury scored 31 points for Temple, but the Owls couldn’t keep pace. Russel Todd scored 23 points, and Greg Jones and Lester Rowe scored 19 each, as WVU won its first Atlantic-10 Tournament title and punched its ticket back to the NCAAs with an 86-78 win.

7. No Revenge — WVU had already defeated Temple once during the 1993-94 season, but the Owls, ranked No. 8 in the country, were more than ready for revenge when they made the return trip to the WVU Coliseum on Feb. 8, 1994. Following a 13-2 start to the season, the Mountaineers had lost three straight, and few expected a repeat of that first meeting for a struggling club. A packed house, though, was ready for a challenge. WVU trailed 35-30 at halftime, but a spirited second-half run forced an extra period. By then, the momentum was all with the home team, and the Mountaineers outscored the Owls 15-8 in overtime to claim the 78-71 victory. Oak Hill’s P.G. Greene paced the effort with 27 points, while Martinsburg’s Marsalis Basey scored 21.

6. Rocky Topped — WVU had been to the NCAA Tournament five times under Gale Catlett and won two games in the tournament under his guidance when it went back to the Big Dance in 1989. But it had been five years since the Mountaineers won a tournament game, and the opponents in that time weren’t necessarily big names. That changed on March 16, 1989, when WVU met Tennessee inside the Greensboro Coliseum. The seventh-seeded Mountaineers, coming off a 25-4 regular season, set the tone early and held a 12-point halftime advantage, 35-23. Tennessee picked up its offensive pace out of the locker room, scoring 45 second-half points, but the Mountaineers not only matched the Vols, they actually exceeded that pace. The Volunteers were outscored 49-45 in the second half, and WVU cruised to an impressive 84-68 win that set up a second-round showdown with Duke.

5. Moving On — West Virginia had just one NCAA Tournament victory in the previous 21 years when the No. 11-seed Mountaineers met up with Oregon State on March 15, 1984. Outside of an opening-round win against overmatched North Carolina A&T in 1982, WVU hadn’t tasted an NCAA victory since George King’s club took down NYU in a regional third-place game in 1963. WVU fans were hungry for March success, but it looked like that streak would continue when the Mountaineers fell behind the sixth-seeded Beavers at halftime. WVU had battled to tie the game, though, when sophomore J.J. Crawl stole an OSU pass and scored on a driving layup with two seconds on the clock to give his club a 64-62 triumph. It was the 20th win of the season for a Mountaineer squad that had earned a No. 11 NCAA berth after winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Vernon Odom scored 15 points, Lester Rowe had 11 and Dale Blaney 10, as WVU earned a second-round matchup with Maryland and Terp superstar Len Bias.

4. Hello Old Foe — It seemed appropriate that after finishing off a 22-8 campaign in its third year (1997-98) in the Big East that the first opponent WVU met in the NCAA Tournament that year was old A-10 rival Temple. Once 19-3 and 9-3 in the powerful Big East, WVU had been ranked as high as No. 15 in the land at one point in the season. But the Mountaineers had stumbled down the stretch, losing five of their last eight games, including a 72-65 loss to 12th-seed Rutgers in the Big East Tournament. WVU limped into the NCAA Tournament with a 22-8 record and a No. 10 seed. Temple quickly got the message that the Mountaineers had regrouped at the right time when the men in Gold & Blue opened up a 32-20 advantage at the half. The Mountaineers, though, were just getting started. The second half was complete domination, as Catlett’s crew outscored the Owls 50-32 to claim a lopsided 82-52 victory in Boise and a spot in the Round of 32.

3. Awesome Baby! — In one of the most anticipated games in years, No. 6 Connecticut visited the WVU Coliseum on Feb. 11, 1998. WVU was 19-4 overall and ranked No. 16 in the Associated Press poll, but there were still plenty of non-believers. A win over Jim Calhoun’s Huskies in front of Dick Vitale and an ESPN audience would go a long way toward changing perception, and that is exactly what the Mountaineers intended to give a rowdy crowd of more than 15,000 fans. Following a Vitale sound-alike contest and plenty of pregame festivities, WVU took a 43-37 halftime lead behind the hot hand of sharpshooter Greg Jones. The second half was more of the same, as the Mountaineers withstood a UConn run and pulled away to win 80-62 before fans stormed the court in excitement. Jones finished with 18 points, while Jarrod West added 15. Damian Owens had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and WVU sent a message to the country that this team was for real.

2. Sharked! — This victory was WVU’s third in school history over a No. 1 opponent, but for many on Feb. 27, 1983, it felt like the first. It had been 17 years since the Mountaineers knocked off top-ranked Duke in Charleston, and the program had fallen on some hard times for a stretch. So, when 15,638 WVU fans packed the Coliseum to be a part of a highly-anticipated CBS national television broadcast, the players in Gold & Blue responded. Jerry Tarkanian’s group of Runnin’ Rebels featured six players who found their way to the NBA — including Larry Anderson and Sidney Green — but it was Mountaineer guard Greg Jones (a different one than the one above) who stole the show. Jones finished with 32 points, and students rushed the floor in celebration following an 87-78 win that is still one of the most talked-about games in Coliseum history.

1. Huggs and High Fives – The 1998 season provided several memorable moments as reflected in this list, but it looked as though it was coming to an end on March 14, 1998, in Boise, Idaho. WVU had held tight with the second-seeded Cincinnati in the NCAA second-round game — with neither team leading by more than four in the second half — but when D’Juan Baker hit his second 3-pointer in the final minute to put Cincinnati up 74-72 with 7.1 seconds left, it felt like heartbreak for the Mountaineers. West Virginia point guard Jarrod West had other ideas, though. The senior sprinted down the court, got a high-ball screen from center Brian Lewin and launched a shot from 25 feet that banked off the glass and swished through the net. The shot put WVU into the Sweet 16 for the first time since playing for an NCAA title in 1959 and sent Bearcat head coach and former WVU player Bob Huggins back to Cincinnati in disappointment.