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And that seemed only fitting considering the basketball team has essentially transplanted to Morgantown from New York.

With 4.2 seconds left in a tie game, Da'Sean Butler, one of five West Virginia starters from the New York metropolitan area, drove the lane and hit a layup that ultimately gave the No. 3 Mountaineers a 60-58 victory over No. 8 Georgetown in the Big East championship.

After Chris Wright missed a layup on the other end as time expired, the Mounties raucously celebrated their first Big East tournament championship at midcourt.

"I had a little hesitation, went round [Greg Monroe] and [Austin] Freeman stepped up. [I] had a little hop step and scooped the layup off the glass and it fell," Butler said.

Within seconds, Denver was bellowing out, "West Virginia, mountain momma. Take me home, country roads."

"It feels good," said Butler, a senior who starred at Bloomfield Tech in Newark and then stayed at West Virginia after head coach Bob Huggins replaced John Beilein after his freshman season. "Our families are here and all our friends are here. That's good and everything, but we kind of wanted to win this for our state first because the people there love us so much and they support us so much. And I definitely know it means the world to them."

The shot marked the second time in three days that Butler hit the game-winning shot for West Virginia. He drained a 3-pointer off the glass at the buzzer on Thursday to give West Virginia a 54-51 victory over Cincinnati in the quarterfinals.

Butler finished with a team-high 20 points and surpassed the 2,000 point plateau. He now has 2,016 for his career.

Butler was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big East championship and was joined on the All-Tournament team by teammate Kevin Jones, a Mount Vernon, N.Y. native who had 12 points; Greg Monroe (11 points, 6 rebounds) and Chris Wright (20 points) of Georgetown; Tory Jackson of Notre Dame and Lazar Hayward of Marquette.

West Virginia could end up being a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament when the brackets are announced Sunday evening on CBS, but may also have to settle for a No. 2.

"We have 18 top 100 wins," Huggins said. "We have nine top 50 wins. The 18 is the most of any team in the country. Our non-league RPI was second. Our strength of schedule is going to be one. We're going to end up in the top two or three in the RPI. They say do those things, we've done those things.

"That being said, we're going to enjoy this. We're going to get together [Sunday] and watch the Selection Show, find out where we're going to go and who we're going to play."

Huggins broke a tie with John Wooden on the all-time career wins list and now has 665. Huggins has won 10 tournament titles in four different conferences.

Trailing 8-1 in the first half, West Virginia used a 16-5 run to go up 17-13 and led until less than a minute left in the game.

When Freeman (14 points) drained a 3-pointer with 51.3 seconds left, the game was tied at 56, marking the first tie since the 10:46 mark of the first half.

Joe Mazzulla hit two foul shots with 27.6 seconds left for a 58-56 West Virginia lead. He finished with seven assists and no turnovers.

But Wright answered on the other end with a driving layup to tie the game at 58.

After a timeout, Devin Ebanks inbounded the ball to Butler, who drove straight down the lane and put up a shot that rolled around the rim and then down. Wright rushed down court with a chance to tie but came up short.

Asked if he considered pulling up for a jumper, Wright said "I wasn't thinking of pulling up or anything, just get all the way to the basket and get it to overtime."

Georgetown, which dropped to 7-6 in Big East championship games, is still headed to the NCAAs. Seven other Big East teams are all but certain to join them - West Virginia, Syracuse, Villanova, Marquette, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Louisville.

"It's March. And we are extremely disappointed, but this too shall pass" Hoyas coach John Thompson III said. "We need to move on and get ready for next week."