Unless West Virginia draws a Big East team in the NCAA tournament, the Mountaineers relationship with the Big East will come to an end this week. However, as West Virginia heads to the Big 12, that doesn't mean the Mountaineers won't have Big East teams on its schedule in the coming seasons.

"We really recruit a lot on the East Coast so we have to play a lot of non-conference games on the East Coast and hopefully people that we have good relationships will continue to play us," West Virginia coach Mike Carey said. "We are going to the Big 12, a pretty tough league too, but I would hope we could get some games on the East Coast because that would be huge for us."

Carey said that Louisville is the only Big East school he's had conversations with about signing up for a non-conference series.

"We haven't talked about it yet," Carey said about playing UConn in the future. "The only one I really talked to about it is Louisville who said they'd like to play in a year or two. We'd like to play some Big East schools because we have great relationships with a lot of the coaches, a lot of the schools so we would like to play a lot of them."

Carey said that the Big 12 talk came up in recruiting as West Virginia recruited kids on the East Coast including Hillhouse's Bria Holmes, who will play for the Mountaineers next season.

"It does and that is why we have to play in the East Coast," Carey said. "We'd only play up in this area maybe two or three times a year anyways. So if we come up in this area and play on the East Coast it would
be no different to playing in the Big East."

As the post-game press conference was winding down after West Virginia's 39-32 win over Georgetown, Carey was asked to reflect on his time coaching in the Big East.
"Needless to say I love the Big East and always did," Carey said. "When I first got a job at West Virginia I was so excited to coach in the Big East, coach against the great players in the Big East and see different places in the Big East. I made a lot of friends in the coaching community in the Big East, in the Big East office staff people and everything so I am definitely going to miss it. The one thing I wanted to say is the people of Connecticut, the media of Connecticut have been great to us since I have been here. I wanted to thank them and thank everybody. We are going to the Big 12 and I am looking forward to that challenge, that is going to be a big challenge but I am definitely going to miss the Big East."

After the press conference I asked Carey about how much confidence the Mountaineers gained from beating Notre Dame on Feb. 12 as well as other results this season considering that West Virginia lost four players who started games last season.

"We beat four or five ranked teams and we are not ranked, we are playing in the Big East, finishing fifth in the Big East, beat a lot of teams that are ranked and we are not ranked," Carey said. "It says a lot about our program, says a lot about our players.

"They worked hard and bought in what we asked them to do. Everybody knows their role on this team and that is big.I think it gave us a lot of confidence, came home and were able to beat a couple of other people."