The Irish, despite having a veteran team with two straight Final Four trips and the most NCAA Tournament victories over the last two years of any team in this year’s tournament, looked a lot different than these Mountaineers.
One team looked big, burly and manly, the other not quite so big, burly and manly. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey noticed it too.
“The one thing about West Virginia that’s the same, when we played them back in the Big East and more so today, they’ve got men,” Brey said. “They have old dudes, and staying old is a good thing in college basketball.