All of the other top seeds had lost, and West Virginia seemed to be headed the same way, having blown a double-digit lead to Cincinnati in the last Big East Tournament quarterfinal.
But third-seeded West Virginia had one last shot and Da’Sean Butler hit it, banking in a 3-pointer at the buzzer, leaving the Mountaineers delirious and the Bearcats despondent.
Butler took an inbound pass with just 3.1 seconds left, and went glass for a shot that rattled home for a 54-51 victory. It handed Lance Stephenson, who starred at Brooklyn’s Lincoln High, his first tournament loss ever at the Garden, and gave West Virginia a date with Notre Dame in tonight’s semis.
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Stephenson, who had won an unheard of four straight PSAL titles, had a dozen of his game-high 19 points in the second half, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 42 seconds left. Cincinnati (18-15) had a chance to win it, but Dion Dixon dribbled the ball out of bounds with 3.1 seconds left gave the Mountaineers (25-6) the chance they needed to steal it back.
“[Seeing Stephenson tie it ] sucked, but you’ve got to come back and play,” Butler said. “Players make plays, and he’s a great player. You can’t bury yourself and sulk, you’ve got to pull through.”
Stephenson warned Butler before the inbound that he was going to guard him.
“He told me ‘I’m staying with you.’ So I knew he wasn’t going to switch. He was playing tough defense, but I just got a little separation and knocked it down,” Butler said.
After seeing top-seeded Syracuse, No. 2 Pitt and No. 4 Villanova fall, the Mountaineers — with so much local flavor, you can call them the Metro’neers — are the highest seed remaining.
“It’s anybody’s game,” Butler said, “but I kinda like the odds on us right now, with how hard we play and how well we execute.”
Butler, a Newark native, had 15 points. Sophomore Kevin Jones of Mount Vernon had a team-high 17 for West Virginia and sophomore Devin Ebanks of Long Island City had 10.
It was the Mountaineers’ long-armed defense that let them jump out quickly, taking an 18-4 lead and holding the Bearcats to 0-for-9 shooting until Stephenson finally scored more than 10 minutes into the game.
“This is our area. We just want to play good for our friends and family watching us, and for the Mountaineer fans. I think we did that,” said Ebanks. “We always find a way to win, and that’s the way we’ve been all year. We do what we have to do to win. We always try to find a way to win. That’s just our team, that’s the way we’ve been all year.”