Published: January 23, 2009 12:34 am      

COLUMN: Big East ranking motivation for WVU

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The inauguration hangover was just about gone from the nation’s capital on Thursday night as West Virginia University and Georgetown got down to business.

Oh, there was a right to life rally on Thursday and there was still plenty of traffic, which is probably why the city’s newest resident wasn’t at the Verizon Center for the game.

Pennsylvania Avenue is just a mess at rush hour.

Of course, it could be that Barack Obama just couldn’t get a ticket and he surely wouldn’t take a free one.

You know those Chicago politicians, no shady dealings like that.

Turns out it was a shame he had to stay home, probably helping unpack the china, because he missed the biggest upset this town has seen since ... well, since he came out of nowhere to win the presidency.

After all, this West Virginia team is supposed to be the ninth-best team in the Big East, according to the pre-season poll.

Ninth, and they took No. 12/14 Georgetown — and that’s a national ranking, not a Big East prediction — apart, leaving no meat on the bone in a 75-58 victory.

Ninth?

“We hear that every day in practice from Coach (Bob) Huggins,” said Mountaineer forward Da’Sean Butler. “‘You guys are practicing like you’re the ninth-best team in the Big East,’ he’ll say. We use it for motivation.”

Butler certainly had some kind of motivation for this one. With Alex Ruoff’s shot somewhere off on vacation, Butler took over the game in the first half, scoring 15 of his 27 points.

“We rode Da’Sean today,” Ruoff would say later.

But in the end, it was Ruoff who would stand as tall as Abraham Lincoln in his stovepipe hat, coming through when West Virginia needed him.

Georgetown came out in the second half and got to within two points, and then still was within five when Ruoff hit his first — and only — 3-point shot of the game to give the Mountaineers some breathing room.

Then, with Georgetown still hanging around, waiting for that one run that home teams always seem to make, Ruoff showed his true constitution and he took the ball at the top of the key, saw an opening, broke through toward the basket and while challenged, went up with a one-handed slam dunk that rattled the rafters.

Considering that Ruoff dunks about as often as Obama takes the oath of office, it changed the whole complexion of the game.

“I’d just missed a layup and I didn’t want to take a chance on another finger roll,” Ruoff said of his decision to go strong to the hoop.

It was another example of just what Ruoff means to this West Virginia team. Even on a bad shooting night, when he goes 3 for 10 and makes just one of seven 3-point tries, Ruoff finds some way to provide a positive spark to the team.

In the end, he finished with 10 points and nine assists. Count ‘em – nine.

Each one of them led to two or three points, so in reality he had himself at least a 28-point night.

“I was just proud that I did not let bad shooting affect the rest of my game,” Ruoff said.

The truth is that Ruoff has not been shooting well lately at all. In his last five games he has hit 20 field goals in 58 attempts, which is just 34 percent, while making only 11 of 36 3-point shots, just 28 percent.

Ruoff’s biggest asset, though, may just be that he is a senior on a team that has to look to him for leadership. Point guard Truck Bryant is a freshman and makes freshman mistakes, so it is up to Ruoff to see that the offense runs smoothly.

“He has an understand of how to put guys in the right spot,” said Huggins.

The result of that in this game was West Virginia could shrug off 16 turnovers because they wound up getting a whole lot of open looks or dunks.

To the Mountaineers and their quest for an NCAA Tournament berth and a high enough seed so they can feel they can have an impact on the tournament, this victory could be compared to the way Obama won over Pennsylvania on his way to the White House.

It was a win that should impress the selection committee in March.

Someone during Huggins’ post-game press conference wanted to know if this team might have a problem getting back down to earth for Sunday’s engagement in the Coliseum with Pitt after such an important road victory.

Huggins looked at the questioner and answered:

“They’re gonna deal with me for two days. How high do you think they’re gonna get?”

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.