When this season started, WVU was probably unfairly penalized for being demolished in the NCAA Tournament last season. Never mind it was in the Sweet Sixteen, the opponent was a once-a-generation force and the Mountaineers would take nine players from one season to the next.

The response this year was both spectacular and successful. Being left out of the preseason top 25 was the team’s strongest motivation all season, a season that may have been the best in school history.

And then it ended the way it did Friday, threatening again to redefine a team and all it accomplished.

Against Stephen F. Austin, West Virginia slept and slept and slept. And that nightmare, the Lumberjacks, never went away. So for the second year in a row, the Mountaineers experienced NCAA horror, losing 70-56 to the 14th-seeded Lumberjacks.

No one could probably fathom West Virginia could lose in a more embarrassing fashion than it did in last season’s 78-39 face-plant against Kentucky. But just ask Mountaineer assistant Erik Martin which was worse.

“This one, because I think we could have made it to the Final Four,” said the assistant coach. “Last year, against Kentucky, we ran up against a team that will never be assembled again in college sports. I don’t really do numbers, but this was a team that was favored to win tonight.”