W Virginia, Butler gatecrash NC Final 4

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Country roads, take me home.

Or better yet, Indianapolis.

It’s almost heaven, West Virginia. Da’Sean Butler and the Mountaineers are off to the Final Four for the first time since 1959.

Joe Mazzulla scored a career-high 17 points in his first start this season and West Virginia handled a cold-shooting Kentucky team stocked with future NBA players almost from the opening tip for a 73-66 victory in the East Regional final Saturday night.

“It’s something we’ve been preaching,” Butler said. “Not even just two more. Ever since we won our first game. Five more, four more, three more. It doesn’t mean anything unless you win the whole thing.”

Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins, back with his alma mater, is in the Final Four for the first time since taking Cincinnati in 1992. It’s an even longer stretch for West Virginia-Jerry West was the star of the team 51 years ago, and not yet a Hall of Famer or NBA logo.

“The first day I was here, I told them I came back to win a national championship,” Huggins said. “I came back to win it for the university, having played there, and for the great people of our state.”

For freshman sensation John Wall and the young Wildcats (35-3), a scintillating season ended with a clang.

They were awful from 3-point range, missing their first 20 attempts and finishing a stunning 4 of 32 (12.5 percent). DeAndre Liggins finally hit a 3 with 3:29 left to end the drought, but by then it was too late.

West Virginia made eight 3s in the first half without a 2-point basket.

The second-seeded Mountaineers (31-6) used the same aggressive, in-your-face defense that led them to their three previous tournament wins. They closed the lanes, leaving Kentucky’s speedy guards with few chances to penetrate. And they flustered Kentucky’s big men, particularly center DeMarcus Cousins, by collapsing three players into the post once he got the ball.

West Virginia also denied the top-seeded Wildcats easy shots by committing fouls and forcing Kentucky to make free throws, which didn’t happen. The Wildcats went 16 of 29 from the line.

SALT LAKE CITY – Every day they walk into practice, they also walk onto a movie set – the one where they filmed the story about the little team that gets its big chance and lives out the unthinkable dream.

That’s the story of “Hoosiers.”

That’s also the story of Butler – the team that’s reminding everyone that big schools with big money don’t have a monopoly on everything in big-time sports.

Yes, the boys from Butler did it – getting 22 points from Gordon Hayward to defeat Kansas State, 63-56, in the West Regional final Saturday and advance to the Final Four. Next, the Bulldogs take their 24-game winning streak to downtown Indy. Though only five miles from the Butler campus, it’s hard to think of many programs that have taken a longer, more unlikely road to get this close to a championship.

“It’d be just as cool if we moved it to Hinkle,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said of his team’s fieldhouse. “I’d be all for that.”

No such luck. Still, the fifth-seeded Bulldogs (32-4) are writing their own underdog story, even if they can’t really be called underdogs anymore.

Shelvin Mack scored 16 and Ronald Nored and Willie Veasley keyed an in-your-face defensive effort on K-State guards Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente to help Butler become the first school from a true, mid-major conference to make the Final Four since George Mason in 2006. (AP)