MORGANTOWN — They say what goes round comes round and so it is with West Virginia University’s new basketball coach Darian DeVries.

On the surface, there are no strings attaching him to WVU, but when the offer to rebuild the once proud Mountaineer program came along, he was very aware that he had been on the wrong side of one of the best victories in the history of WVU basketball.

It was two decades ago, when DeVries was a young assistant to Dana Altman at Creighton, a job DeVries would hold through 17 seasons, he had to sit there and watch John Beilein’s program announce to the world it would be someone to deal with as it made a heroic late run to a 24-victory season and what would be a thrilling run to put itself within a heartbeat of an improbable trip to the Final Four.

In the opening round of the 2004-05 NCAA Tournament, WVU matched up with Creighton in what began as a heart-stopping thriller decided in the final seconds as Tyrone Sally blocked a Nick Funk 3-point shot and then raced down the floor on a fast break to score with 2.9 seconds left to give the Mountaineers a 63-61 victory and send them off on a Cinderella run in the NCAAs.

That game was still on DeVries’ mind as he was introduced as WVU’s 23rd head basketball coach at a press conference in the Coliseum.

It turns out, the game also was on the mind of Mike Gansey, a key member of that Beilein team who played a huge role in that victory, when the two talked recently.

Gansey, of course, has gone on to become general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, ironically in his hometown and the site where that game was played.

“It’s funny. We joke about it, and I told (Gansey) there is a 20-year statute of limitations, and we haven’t quite gotten there yet, so I haven’t forgiven him yet about that loss,” DeVries said during the press conference. “I hang on to losses a little bit longer than most people, but we’re getting closer.”

Reached in Cleveland when he had a few moments to take away from his general managing of a team heading for the NBA playoffs, Gansey, too, recalled that game and that time when Beilein and his team began capturing the hearts of the nation.

“I remember that game,” Gansey admitted. “We were down like 10-0. I remember Coach Beilein called a time out and said, ‘Guys, we’re good.'”

The Mountaineers needed that reassurance for they had been a bubble team anxiously awaiting their fate on the day the tournament was drawn. They were 21-10 when the draw was made and had to win 7 of their last 8 games to reach that point, including three in a row in the Big East Tournament before falling to Syracuse in a historic final at Madison Square Garden.

WVU was the first No. 8 seed to reach the championship game and no team had ever won four games to take the title, falling that one game short, which left them anxiously awaiting their fate.

“When the draw came, we were just happy to be in the tournament,” Gansey admitted. “We saw Creighton as a challenge. Dana Altman, we knew what a great coach he was and with the system they played (much of which DeVries will bring to WVU), we knew they would not beat themselves). We knew it was going to be a grind-it-out game. It came down to the end.”

And what an ending it was. This was how the Associated Press reported it:

CLEVELAND (AP) — The instant the ball left his hand, Nate Funk thought his 3-pointer was on target to give Creighton another last-minute win.

He didn’t see Tyrone Sally coming up to block it. He couldn’t believe the next thing he saw; Sally running downcourt for a fast-break dunk to win it.

The ball, partially blocked, had gone to Gansey, who spotted Sally and let fly a perfect pass.

“It came down to the end with a crazy miss. Kevin Pittsnogle came down with it and got it to me and I hit Tyrone on the break,” Gansey said.

But there was more to it than that, though.

“Nick Funk had that shot over me and usually I jump, because I wasn’t very disciplined defensively, but my feet were like in quicksand. I remember turning my head and thinking, ‘That shot’s in.’ But I think it went long or short and we ended up winning.” Gansey said.

“You know how it is in the NCAA Tournament, you lose the game, you’re done. But we won, but beside Louisville, I thought that was the most difficult game.”

Ah, the Louisville game. We shall get to that.

First, let’s go back to late this past February and Gansey was at a Drake game to scout DeVries’ son, Tucker, who is now transferring for his final year to keep playing for his dad at WVU.

“I didn’t realize at the time he was on that staff at Creighton. We started talking and when I found out he was on that staff I told him ‘We got lucky’. It was freak play at the end. It was a freak play where we get a half air ball, which Kevin came up with, threw it to me and I threw it to Tyrone.

“I want to say that was the only time we led in the entire game. We were down or tied the whole game and couldn’t get over the hump.”

That was the start of the NCAA run. It was funky, but even funkier was the next game in Cleveland when WVU beat Chris Paul and Wake Forest in a double-overtime classic that ended 111-105.

Ten years later the Cleveland Plain-Dealer would call the WVU-Wake Forest game “the best college basketball game ever played in Cleveland and Gansey would be the star in his hometown.

“It was home for me, so I remember even the Creighton game when I walked out of the tunnel. I looked around and saw five or six friends I hadn’t seen since like middle school. I waved and had to go back in the tunnel. I was thinking, ‘Damn, I got to play well tonight. If I don’t play well, they’ll never come see me again. I put a lot of pressure on myself just because I was back home, which was cool.”

This was the second chapter of the Cinderella story. WVU scored only 27 points in the first half of a game in which they would finish with 111 points, trailing at half, 40-27.

“Big Eric Williams was killing us,” Gansey remembered.

He would finish with 23 points and 12 rebounds, but WVU righted the ship in the second half.

“D’Or (Fischer) had the game of his life,” Gansey said, Fischer coming in to help control Williams and because Pittsnogle was having a rare off night.

Fischer made 6 of 8 shots, scored 15 points, had 12 rebounds and three blocks before fouling out.

But it was Gansey who really took over once it went into overtime, scoring 19 of his game-high 29 points in overtime.

“It kept going and going and going,” Gansey said to the Plain-Dealer’s Bill Livingston in the 10-year anniversary story. “The ball just kept going in the basket. I wanted the ball, and I was going to shoot it every time because it just felt like I couldn’t miss.

“That wasn’t me. That was someone else.”

In the first overtime he and Chris Paul both scored 10 points but in the second OT, Paul fouled out and Gansey bequeathed the game to the Mountaineers.

WVU would also beat Boston College before suffering one of the most insufferable losses in school history, 93-85, in an overtime game in which the Mountaineers led, 50-27, at the half.

“We were up 13 at half but you knew the way Rick Pitino played that they would press, go zone, mix it up and we just kind of ran out of gas,” Gansey recalled. “They started making shots in the second half that they weren’t making earlier.

“I think talent prevailed.”

But it was so close.

“At halftime we’re sitting there thinking, ‘Guys, we got 20 minutes and we’re going to the Final Four. It wasn’t that we were overlooking them, but we starting playing not to lose instead of to win. We weren’t as aggressive in the second half and, credit to Louisville, they amped up the pressure and made shots.”

It was a wonderful time for WVU basketball and a terrible time, those two years, for the next year was more of the same as they lost at the buzzer to Texas after Pittsnogle’s historic 3 seemed to give WVU another thrilling victory.

“We had those games,” Gansey said. “They were right there for the taking. I knew we were going to beat Texas because our offense was clicking and they couldn’t guard us. I see C.J. Tucker nowadays and I tell him ‘We really had you guys.’ He says ‘no,’ but I really think he means ‘yeah.'”