Remember the guy who put the Mountaineers on upset alert in a game in which they were not once challenged? Well, Mr. Katz crowned WVU his team of the week Monday.

WVU’s Big East slate opens with two road games against Seton Hall and Marquette, sandwiched around a monster home game against Connecticut. Nothing about the way West Virginia is playing now seems to hinder the Mountaineers’ ability to beat anybody on their schedule the rest of the season. They’ll still take their share of lumps, but they’ll continue to have weeks like this one.

His runner-up for player of the week got the nod from the Big East.

Speaking of the Big East, conference play begins tonight with a doozie — Georgetown at UConn — and the members of the GREATEST CONFERENCE EVER ASSEMBLED will begin bloodying one another’s noses on ESPN.

HOW MANY ARE DANCING?

This has been the question tossed around for months now. First, a history lesson. As a 16-team group, the Big East received eight bids in both 2006 and ’08 and a stunning six in ’07. The eighth team in `06 (Gerry McNamara’s Syracuse) may not have made the tourney if it didn’t win the conference tourney. So getting eight is hard.

Even so, 10 teams are in excellent shape. The problem is team No. 9 or 10 is bound to own a 9-9 or 8-10 record (at best). That means the selection committee will go looking for quality non-league wins and make sure that some of your eight or nine Big East victories came against Syracuse or Pitt, and not Rutgers and St. John’s.