Sorry to leave you hanging so long here, but we were trying to beat an early edition deadline on this WVU-Big East settlement. A few things here that I’m sure you wonder about because I wonder about them too.

– It’s an $11 million “cash settlement,” and the skeptic in me wonders if other things are involved. My hunch is WVU’s burden is $11 million and the Big 12 will kick in some and one or the other or both are going to get someone into the Big East early to replace WVU. The Big East can’t let WVU go and damage the Big East, so the Big East has to mitigate damages. I was told the Big East knows the best way to mitigate is to get someone to join early. I think that speaks for itself.

– WVU has paid half of the $2.5 million and needs to pay the other half. No one could or wold tell me if WVU is paying $8.5 million and the remaining $2.5 million to get to $11 million, or if it’s $11 million plus the remaining $2.5 million to get to $13.5.

– The Big East owes WVU no money, as WVU previously stated, so the Mountaineers won’t be forgiving a $1 million debt as part of this.

– I’m aware of the report of $20 million and it might get somewhere near there, but I was specifically told a few times it’s  cash settlement for $11 million … hence “quotation marks” in the story.

– No idea what this does to Pitt and Syracuse, but they have to have a starting point for negotiations, if not now, then when the details come out.

– As for the basketball game, Michael Stephens (!) is your lead official and Mike Roberts and Chris Beaver have whistles. And Pat Forsythe is warming up, which makes me think frontcourt depth is a big enough concern that he’ll eschew that option to help the team. We’ll see. He hasn’t played since December 17.

9:02: Truck preemptively locked in. Camera catches him in the tunnel before intros doing that “I flash the OK sign and put the ‘O’ over my eye when I make a 3” sign.

9:05: Truck wearing ordinary sneakers. Truck misses a 3. There goes that “jinx!”

9:06: Deniz probably can’t complain about the officiating tonight. He got away with two fouls on the first three trips.

9:08: Hinds! Hey you, get off my cloud. You don’t know me and you don’t know my southpaw style.

9:10: Hinds! I saw a video of him somewhere…

9:11: Deniz has seriously escaped no less than four fouls. We haven’t heard one whistle yet, though.

9:12: Well, that was fun. WVU is up 5-4 and has missed 10 of 12 shots. The Irish are 2-10/0-5 and have two second-shot baskets. Jack Cooley has five rebounds and the two second-chance baskets. We played 6:32 without a whistle and Huggins will roll in three fresh players.

9:15: Kilicli, Hinds and Miles sit. Maybe he thought Kilicli was in foul trouble.

9:16: KJ follows an airball 3 with a post-up and-one. Do what you do.

9:18: Nique has his hands full with Cooley. Notre Dame goes zone and Aaron Brown misses a 3, but KJ scores on the putback. That’s a good set for WVU to run…

9:19: Hey, 9:34 in and we have our first foul. It goes to Nique, who will take a seat at the whistle.

9:26: You’re probably wondering, But Aaron Brown was 3-for-5 from 3 the past three games. He’s 0-for-3 today. Meanwhile, Deniz tried his first jumper in about a month and missed and the reaction on the sideline was about what you’d expect.  Notre Dame figuring a few things out on offense and getting some nice shots suddenly to take a 15-12 lead.

9:29: Boy, WVU does not look good against the zone … and WVU has seen a lot of zone the past five games now, even against Pitt, which never zones.

9:35: Notre Dame made five straight shots and 7 of 9. WVU has missed eight in a row and five are 3s. Game is getting away in a 5:59 scoring drought at the 3:49 mark. Notre Dame is up 19-12.

9:39: Really tame in here right now and WVU is about to submit the lowest scoring half of basketball by either team in a WVU game this season. Previous low was the 20 points scored in the first half against St. John’s. Mountaineers have the ball and are down 23-16.

9:41: And it’s 26-16 at the half. Jones has seven points and he better get hot or his streak and WVU’s chances for a win are shot.

9:44: How bad was it? Seven baskets matches the fewest in a half by WVU this season (at Seton Hall and at St. John’s) and the 24.1 percent shooting is the worst by any team in a half.

9:57: Another lineup switch to start the second half. Browne for Miles.

10:05: WVU looks a lot better to start this half and weathered an equally effective start by the Irish to cut the lead to six points and force a guy who looks just like Mike Brey, but isn’t wearing a mock turtleneck to call a timeout. It’s 32-26. WVU needed 9:07 to score 10 points in the first half, but just 4:27 to score 10 in the second half.

10:10: Browne goes 0-for-2 at the line and the ball goes out off a Notre Dame player and Deniz inexplicably points to the sky.

10:11: I’m going to call that a jump hook because it was a hook shot from jumper range.

10:13: Circle that nonsense. Browne gets caught with a triple team on the baseline and somehow finds daylight and passes to a wide the heck open Truck, who jumps to shoot and passes it off Deniz’s back. Hinds gets it and scores. That was maybe my favorite moment of the season.

10:17: It’s going to be borderline miraculous if WVU wins this. KJ, Deniz and Jabarie have  all 30 points. The other six players are 0-5, 0-3, 0-2, 0-2, 0-0 and 0-0.

10:20: Truck finally score…wait, that was Hinds playing the role of Truck with a wild, driving attempt at a layup that went in somehow.

10:29: KJ hits a 3, from where he is really struggling, and the Mountaineers lead. Not going to hear a louder cheer than that in this gym.

10:31: Kilicli hooks Notre Dame into another timeout and… my god, that’s CEJ’s music.

10:33: Say what you will about Truck, but he doesn’t have it and seems to know it (0-5/0-3 … and I’m tempted to put a “just” in front of that because of who he is) but he has eight assists and no turnovers and has played acceptable defense on the perimeter, where the Irish try to do a lot on offense.

10:35: Oof, tough call on Martin there. By the way, WVU hasn’t subbed at all this half … and Browne has four fouls. NOt sure how to say this, but I feel like him playing the point and having the ball so much has taken a lot of temptation out of Truck’s hands.

10:38: Deniz has treated the paint like a china shop all game. All game.

10:39: Atkins with a dagger. Truck with a big turnover and Grant with a secondary dagger. What a swing. This just turned in a bad way for Mr. Bryant. I honestly don’t think he was that bad before that play, which is magnified by Grant’s onions.

10:41: Truck misses a layup he has to make. That was his first shot of the second half and the crowd is booing.

10:42: Bad switch up top and Martin, again left open, bangs a 3. Six point deficit isn’t going away with 51.7 seconds to go, or so say the fans who are leaving in droves. These are the ones in the good seats, too.

10:45: Not a good night for WVU. This is a bitter loss to take, especially after taking a little control late. But the Mountaineers go from up 43-40 and 45-43 to losing 55-51 … and some cheapos late get WVU closer. This was one WVU had to have, too. Now the games at Notre Dame and at Pitt are kind of must-wins, aren’t they? Can’t get swept in the Pitt and Notre Dame series. And KJ’s streak ends, as Drew Schinino’s did nine years ago to the Irish. Notre Dame still hasn’t allowed a playerto get 20 points in a game.