As the farmers say when the chores are done, the hay is in the barn.
West Virginia University's basketball team has done its task well enough to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Coach Bob Huggins thinks so.
So does every other basketball expert who spends time on such matters.
Sure, until we see West Virginia's name pop up during Sunday's Selection Show, we'll all have just that little tinge of doubt, but part of being a sports fan is being on the edge of your seat.
This isn't one of those years where we have great expectations of WVU's chances of winning a national championship or heading back to the Final Four.
A Sweet 16 appearance would be indeed be sweet. Anything more than that and we'd not only be ecstatic, but we'd also be wondering where that team had been all season.
This could well be one of those years where the Mountaineers are one and done.
But that depends on a lot of factors such as the quality of the opening-round opponent and which West Virginia team shows up on game day.
If WVU does get its much-expected invitation, we'll be happy not only for Huggins, who will continue his streak of having WVU in the NCAA Tournament every year since returning to his alma mater, but we'll be even more pleased for senior Kevin Jones.
I shudder to think where this young team might have finished without Jones, who became just the third player in the history of the Big East Conference to lead the league in both scoring and rebounding.
Yet, when the all-Big East team was announced on Sunday, Jones wasn't a consensus pick. Only Jae Crowder of Marquette was accorded that honor.
When the Big East Player of the Year is announced in New York on Tuesday, there shouldn't be any doubt about the winner. But Sunday's all-conference team may well be the tell-tale clue that the biggest ripoff in Big East history may be on the horizon.
If Jones isn't the Player of the Year, WVU ought to get out of that league, say about, oh, June 30.
As the No. 8 seed in the Big East Conference Tournament, West Virginia will get an opening round bye and will play its first game at Madison Square Garden at noon on Wednesday against the winner of Tuesday's noon game between No. 16 seed DePaul and No. 9 seed Connecticut. Should the Mountaineers survive that contest, they then would meet top-seeded Syracuse in a quarterfinal game at noon on Thursday.
Speaking of the quarterfinals, coach Mike Carey's WVU women won their Big East quarterfinal on Sunday over Georgetown and now will meet No. 1 seed Notre Dame at 6 p.m. today in a semifinal contest at Hartford, Conn.
The West Virginia women (23-8) are playing for seeding in the NCAA Tournament as there is no doubt they have qualified for the end-of-the-season show.
Contact Dave Poe at dpoe@newsandsentinel.com
