NCAA West Regional | West Virginia Mountaineers take a notch out of Duke

WASHINGTON — After West Virginia forward Joe Alexander led the seventh-seeded Mountaineers to an upset of second-seeded Duke in the second round of the NCAA tournament, he asked a pointed question.

When told that the Mountaineers had just beaten a team with eight McDonald's all-Americans, Alexander seemed startled. He arched his eyebrows and asked in a serious tone, "Who?"

Nearly every Blue Devil who played Saturday was a high school All-American. West Virginia had none. So after embarrassing the Blue Devils on the court by scoring 22 points in a 73-67 victory, Alexander and his teammates spent much of the postgame interviews mocking the Duke mystique.

"We don't care that they're Duke," Alexander said. "That doesn't mean anything to us. People look at West Virginia like we're this midmajor school playing all these big schools and upsetting them. That's not the case at all."

For the second consecutive year, the Blue Devils found out that their blue-blood history, recruiting pedigree and ESPN-fueled aura mean little in the NCAA tournament.

West Virginia (26-10) advanced to the Round of 16 for the third time in four seasons. As its band struck up John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," the Mountaineers prepared to continue their postseason path to Phoenix for a West Regional game against No. 3 Xavier on Thursday.

The Mountaineers actually have a better recent record of postseason success than Duke (28-6). West Virginia won the National Invitation Tournament last season, advanced to the NCAA tournament's Round of Eight in 2005 and to the Round of 16 in 2006.

"Any sports fan who has done their homework on us recently and knows that we have Bob Huggins as our coach, how can they pick us 10th in the Big East or to get upset in the first round of the NCAA tournament?" Alexander said.

The Blue Devils lost to Virginia Commonwealth in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year and have not been to the Final Four since 2004.

Alexander complemented his 22 points with 11 rebounds and hit teammates for layups on two backdoor cuts in the second half. His co-star on the day was the reserve guard Joe Mazzulla, who helped erase a 10-point deficit in the first half.

Mazzulla, whom Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski called the game's most valuable player, finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists.

West Virginia controlled the boards, scoring 17 second-chance points to Duke's 5. For the game, the Mountaineers out-rebounded the Blue Devils by 45-19, taking advantage of a team that Krzyzewski acknowledged was "a little bit undersized."

Xavier 85, Purdue 78

WASHINGTON — If Purdue could have picked one or two players from Xavier to focus upon, then surely the Boilermakers would have had an easier time fulfilling their reputation as one of the best defensive teams in the Big Ten.

Purdue, however, discovered what many Atlantic 10 teams already know: The X-men are balanced.

C.J. Anderson and Drew Lavender each scored 18 points, Josh Duncan had 16, Stanley Burrell added 11 and two other Musketeers scored eight apiece to carry Xavier into the semifinals of the West Regional.

The Musketeers (29-6) shot 54 percent in breaking the single-season school record for wins.

"We have a number of different players that can answer the bell on offense," coach Sean Miller said. "It's a really unique team to guard, because on different nights different people can beat you."

The Musketeers were 26 for 33 at the line and 27 for 50 from the floor against a team that led the Big Ten in field-goal percentage defense. The 85 points scored by Xavier were the most allowed by Purdue (25-9) this season.

Xavier was efficient on defense, too. Although the Boilermakers scored 25 points in the final 8 ½ minutes, they shot only 39 percent and were 8 for 21 from three-point range.