WVU Loss in 1959 Title Game Still Haunts West

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The most celebrated moment in West Virginia basketball history happened 51 years ago, and it still resonates with Jerry West. Painfully.

"It was certainly a bitter time for me," he said.

West was the Mountaineers' greatest player, a legend with the Los Angeles Lakers and a top NBA executive, not to mention the model for the league logo. But he once told a reporter, "My basketball career has sort of been on the tragic side of everything."

To West, the defeats always carried far more weight than the victories. And one of the most painful was West Virginia's 71-70 loss to California in the 1959 NCAA championship game in Louisville. It's the Mountaineers' only …