Hertzel: Another Dream for WVU Bites the Dust in Houston
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At midday Saturday, West Virginia was on the floor in the brand-new Fertitta Center in Houston that was filling up to its capacity to be there for the first Big 12 game the No. 3-ranked Cougars would play, the mind was racing away a lot faster than any fast break the Mountaineers would be able to put together later in the afternoon.
There were so many dream-like scenarios that could come of this trip for the underdog Mountaineers, as unlikely as they were to occur, that you began thinking of such things as fate, kismet and moments that just have to come true.
OK, I'm an old softy and I'm always rooting for the upset. A WVU victory would be as unlikely as … as … well, like the New York Mets winning the 1969 World Championship, like Bill Mazeroski hitting a game-winning home run against the Yankees at the height of their greatness, as Willis Reed coming out onto the floor in the old Madison Square Garden and leading the Knicks to a World Championship, as Kirk Gibson limping to home plate, barely able to walk, and hitting a ninth-inning, limp-off home run in the 1988 World Series.
You knew it couldn't happen, but that's what makes sports great. UCLA won 88 straight games before losing to Notre Dame. Man O' War was beaten by a horse named Upset for his only defeat, so why couldn't WVU write its own chapter into the hearts of its fans?
And if that could happen, why couldn't it become a fairytale finish, a story within a story.
Like RaeQuan Battle, who fought so hard to get onto the court for WVU and who had scorched the nets for 29, 29 and 24 points in his first three games.
Why not hit the game-winner and, while we're dreaming, make it a 3-pointer that gave him his 28th, 29th and 30th point? After all, his mother had come in from Washington, and was there to see her son play for the first time as a Mountaineer.
Why not? Because Houston wouldn't let him. Don't know what was in that pipe I had to be smoking, but the Cougars don't let anyone score. They were the only team in the nation to be allowing fewer than 50 points a game, so when WVU scored 55 in an 89-55 defeat, you could almost say it was an accomplishment.
But it wasn't.
Battle's mom had to sit there and suffer with the rest of Mountaineer nation watching her son get two quick fouls, go nearly the entire game before hitting his only field goal in 9 attempts and finish with 4 points.
Down went one dream, but there were others.
Quinn Slazinski has been slumping a bit of late, but Houston was home to him. He'd gone away quite a while ago to pursue an education and his place in the world of basketball, playing at Louisville, playing for Rick Pitino at Iona and then coming this year to WVU.
Coach Josh Eilert was feeling good about his chances of coming out of it in this game at home.
"I wouldn't say he's in a slump. I haven't really studied the numbers, but he hasn't been the same. He hasn't had the same comfort level on his shot recently. I had a conversation with him yesterday where he said, 'Coach, I got it back. It feels good.' I think he was trying to aim it," Eilert said on Thursday.
"He wasn't shooting with the confidence he shot with early. We need him back in the fold and to be a vital part of our offensive strategy moving forward."
And he was part of that strategy coming into Saturday's game but that, too, was a pipe dream.
He scored 8 points and went 3-of-11 shooting, 1-of-7 from 3-point range.
He didn't play much in the second half, Eilert noting, "He got one rebound in the first 20 minutes. That's hard to stare at."
And so, another dream bit the dust.
Then there was freshman Ofri Nevah from Israel. If you live and breathe within the sound of a television set or the internet, you know things are not very nice over there.
His family remains there and you can't help but worry about them.
As play was getting ready to begin, the Internet came alive with the news and a picture of his family gathered in the early morning hours in Israel before a television set to watch their son play.
What a gift it would have been for him to play a good game, to reach double figures, maybe score a game-winner.
Not this year with what WVU basketball has been through.
Nevah played only three minutes. He took only one shot, a 3, and missed it.
That's just what kind of day it was in a year spinning crazily out of control.