There's been a lot of ups and downs with our first year in the Big 12. Certainly a lot of unexpected ones. From the mid-season collapse of the football team to the whole season collapse of the basketball team, it was hard to imagine things could have turned out so bad. Expectations fueled a lot of that though. We should also include the increased level of competition in football and a blustery west Texas wind in there too.
But there has been at least one thing we can hang our hat on this year, a season sweep of Texas in football, basketball, and baseball (If you count a 2-1 series win this past weekend...and for the purposes of this post, we do!). Because if you can't win the conference title, the next best thing is to take out the conference big dog. At least from a reputation standpoint, that would be Texas.
At the time, the football team's win in Austin looked to be a signature win that would propel the team into the national title hunt. And it did for a week. In hindsight, it ended up being the high water mark for WVU and Texas football in 2012.
The two wins in basketball this year were probably two of the worst exhibitions of the sport since peach baskets were replaced with nets and metal rims. But when your lasting memory of Texas basketball is dying by the three and Kevin Pittsnogle's bloody nose, we'll take it.
College baseball doesn't capture the imagination of the sporting world the way football and basketball do, but Longhorn baseball has quite a storied history. With six national titles and the likes of Roger Clemens and over 100 former Longhorns that played in the major leagues on the all-time roster, it's certainly a program worth noting. Going into the year, it is also the least likely of the big three sports that I thought we could come out ahead of the Longhorns in.
Even the Women's Soccer team got into the act, taking a 1-0 OT victory in Austin late in the season, sealing WVU's only Big 12 title this school year.
The Longhorns are too big, too rich, too good and too Texas for this kind of thing to continue forever. But, for our first year in the Big 12....it was totally worth it.