MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The high-flying Mountaineers, making their third Sweet 16 appearance in the past four years with a second coach, jetted to Phoenix yesterday and the NCAA tournament's West Region semifinals toting proudly a couple of pieces of beneficial baggage, so they feel:

Big East scars.

And Bob Huggins.

Xavier (29-6) packs a No. 12 ranking, a No. 3 region seed, a senior-laden lineup ("they're men," marveled Huggins) and a head coach from Blackhawk High and Pitt with a high-school coaching father who used to work alongside Huggins' pop at the camps of late Farrell coach Ed McCluskey. Sean Miller, son of John? Why Huggins, son of Charlie, said he's only known Miller the younger since "shortly after he got out of diapers." That's just it: Huggins' youthful West Virginia, with two juniors, three sophomores, a redshirt freshman, a freshman and just two senior starters carrying the burden, doesn't feel like a bunch of inexperienced diaper-dandies by contrast.

The reasons being, to their line of thinking, their conference and their coach.

"When you play in our league," Huggins said of the 16-team circuit that placed half its membership into the NCAA tournament and sends three -- Louisville and Villanova are the others -- into the final 16, "every game is close, every game kind of has a tournament atmosphere. Playing the whole year [that way], the league really helps you."

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Tomorrow

• West Region game: No. 7 West Virginia (26-10) vs. No. 3 Xavier (29-6), 7:10 p.m.
• Where: US Airways Center, Phoenix.
• TV: KDKA.

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"The Big East overall has prepared us to play anybody," junior forward Joe Alexander added of the seventh-seeded Mountaineers (26-10), who face Miller's Musketeers at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the US Airways Center.

Alexander, of course, is the fellow who made that remark Sunday about almighty Duke, how it wouldn't have been so dominant in the Big East as it was this winter in the ballyhooed Atlantic Coast Conference. Known lately for his offensive prowess, averaging 18 points in the Mountaineers' two NCAA victories and 24.6 over their past eight games (six of them triumphs), Alexander went on the defensive yesterday about that controversial comment.

"I wasn't dissing anybody," Alexander explained. "I was asked where Duke would finish in the Big East. I said they wouldn't dominate. Look at the facts. They lost [in December] to Pitt, who finished seventh in the Big East. They lost to us, and we finished fifth."

West Virginia finished better than most anyone predicted in October, and they aren't finished yet. The Mountaineers have reached another regional semifinal, but with a far different club from the 2005 and '06 zone-playing, 3-point-swishing groups coached by John Beilein, who left last spring for Michigan after steering the team to an NIT title. No, Huggins molded Beilein's recruits into a man-to-man, fastbreaking, moving-and-grooving crowd -- much even to their own surprise.

"We went from a team that wasn't a very good man-to-man defensive team, and they would readily admit that, to a team where our defense has won us a few games," Huggins said.

"When Coach first got here, I wasn't thinking about where me might be [come March]," said junior guard Alex Ruoff. "I was just trying to get through the first couple of workouts. Once the season rolled around and we got through the first couple of games, I knew we'd be in the postseason."

Not everyone was so convinced. Huggins still remembers a local newspaper column that, with 10 games left in the regular season, predicted the Mountaineers would fail to make even the NIT. Yet they thrived, winning seven of those 10 and 11 of their past 15. The players credit Huggins, the former West Virginia player and alumnus who crafted his 23rd consecutive 20-victory season -- only his first in Division I, at Akron in 1984-85, ended below par at 12-14 -- by using his system and Beilein's leftovers.

"He's wise," Ruoff said. "To have that confidence in our coach, to know he's been there ..."

"Obviously, he knows what he's doing in games like this," added sophomore backup guard Joe Mazzulla, referring to Huggins' 20 consecutive postseason tournaments, his 14 consecutive NCAAs at Cincinnati, his three NCAA quarterfinal berths. "He's been there before. When you have a guy who has the experience Coach Huggins has, when he sees something or makes an adjustment, even off the court ... when he speaks, we shut up and listen."

Experience, though, is overrated to Huggins, whose team contains one player -- senior point guard Darris Nichols -- with significant playing time from West Virginia's previous Sweet 16s.

"In 1992," Huggins said of his first NCAA trip with Cincinnati, "everybody said, 'This is great for your team. You guys get in, maybe it'll be good to get some experience and next year ...' And we went to the Final Four. So, I was probably better before I had any experience."