CLEVELAND – Mike Gansey heard all the names, all the insults. Quitter. Traitor. And far worse.
People who didn’t know him, had never met him, heaping on equal parts bile and judgment.
When Gansey decided to transfer from St. Bonaventure in the wake of the scandal that cost the Bonnies the Atlantic 10 tournament, cost them their Senior Night and cost him any chance at a postseason, the reaction from fans was colder than a snowy winter up in Olean, N.Y.
But his mind was made up.
It turned out to be the right call for him, and the right call for West Virginia.
After sitting out last season as a transfer student, the 6-foot-4 wing helped lead the Mountaineers to a Big East finals berth, a seventh-seed in the NCAA Tourney, and last night’s first-round date with Creighton.
A date in Cleveland, 10 minutes from his Olmstead Falls home.
“I knew coming in it was a young team. For me to come in and contribute the way I did, and getting to the Big East championship, going to the NCAA tourney, and have it at Cleveland … it’s like one thing after another,” said Gansey, a former Ohio Mr. Basketball.
“Good things have happened. It’s been a lot of fun.”
It wasn’t fun how he got here.
Averaging 13.9 ppg as a St. Bonaventure sophomore, Gansey was stunned one day when he was called into a team meeting and told the season was being terminated prematurely. There would be a forfeiture of six wins, no A-10 tournament, no NIT tourney. And worst of all, no explanation or recourse.
“Every single emotion, I thought of. I was mad. I was angry. I was sad,” said Gansey, whose teammates voted to boycott the final two regular-season games in protest.
“The bottom line is the team decided not to play and they called us quitters, but that was our decision and we still honor that today.
“They told us we couldn’t play in the A-10 tournament, and we were all upset. We asked them how come we can’t play, and they wouldn’t tell us an answer. We felt if anyone should’ve known, it should be us 12 on the team. We took it upon ourselves not to play because we felt we deserved an explanation.”
The explanation was teammate Jamil Terrell had been admitted with just a welding certificate from Coastal Georgia Community College. The scandal eventually cost the school president, AD and head coach their jobs. It also sent Gansey looking for a new home.
He found it in Morgantown.
“When we heard he was looking to transfer, we treated him like the top recruit [in America],” said WVU coach John Beilein.
Gansey cast his lot with a team closing out a 14-15 season. It came into last night 21-10, coming off a Big East finals berth that he secured with two pressure-packed foul shots to beat Villanova in the Garden.
“He’s the scrappiest guy we have on the team,” said center Kevin Pittsnogle.
“He brings all the energy you could want. Whenever something is going wrong, he pulls us together. Every team needs a Mike Gansey.”