INDIANAPOLIS - West Virginia is composed of equal portions mountains, mines and myths. It is a region of Appalachian accents and backwoods towns that are the punch line of too many jokes.

And the part of its history not concerned with men in raccoon hats shooting rifles mostly deals with men in jerseys shooting basketballs.

"West Virginia basketball and football, said Wellington Smith, a forward on the Mountaineers, "is the only thing that people really live for and thrive for.''

Those fans are living high at the moment. For the first time in a half century, West Virginia has made to the ultimate weekend of the college season, the Final Four.

On Saturday night it plays Duke in the second game of the doubleheader at Lucas Oil Stadium, preceded by Butler - "Home Town Heroes,'' according to the posters and banners around Indy - against Michigan State.

West Virginia, a John Denver song of country roads and mountain mommas, is a landlocked entity. One decent-sized city, Charleston, has a population around 300,000 in its metro area. It's one gallant struggle against a recession that has hit rural America particularly hard.

There's a coach, Bob Huggins, who was run out of Cincinnati for being lax on academics but is idolized in West Virginia, and not because he can be a tough and wears a track suit (Interestingly, on the media guide cover, he's attired in coat and tie).

There's a guard, Joe Mazzulla, who survived a bad shoulder and bad grades and then scored a career-high 17 points and was named the most outstanding player in last weekend's East Regional when the Mountaineers upset Kentucky (That Kentucky missed its first 20 3-point attempts didn't hurt).

There's a legacy that goes back to Jerry West, who with knee-high socks. a jump-shot and according to the late Jim Murray, "the quickest hands and feet ever seen on a guy without a police record,'' was the star the last time, 1959, West Virginia got this far. (It lost to Cal, 71-70, in the final, with the Golden Bears on the back-to-back night format then utilized, beating teams led by Oscar Robertson and West, in the last two games).

In an era when some African American ballplayers are not familiar with Jackie Robinson and a majority of those in the NBA know very little about Bill Russell, if they know anything, it was encouraging Friday to listen to Mazzulla and his teammates. They have a sense of past.

"It's been since 1959, the last time they went to a Final Four,'' affirmed Kevin Jones, the forward. "This is definitely big-time for the state of West Virginia.''

Even if in these days of wild recruiting, only one player, Cam Payne, grew up in West Virginia.

Da'Sean Butler is from Newark, N.J.; Devin Ebanks, Long Island City, N.Y.; Smith, Summit, N.J.; Kevin Jones, Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and Mazzulla, Johnston, R.I.

But at West Virginia they have a sense of place and purpose.

"We're the only sports team in the state,'' said Jones. "The people basically look at us as their pro team.''

As Huggins reminded, "There's not really anybody else there to root for.''

Beyond the borders, however, much of the rooting is against Huggins. He doesn't quite match his nickname, "Huggy.'' Instead he is gruff, no-nonsense, the type of coach you might expect when you understand he graduated from West Virginia.

He made his reputation and his enemies at Cincinnati, which he coached to the 1992 Final Four (won that time by Duke; an omen?) before getting dismissed in August 2005 by a school president, Nancy Zimpher, who said Huggins didn't fit her plan to upgrade the academic standing.

After going to work at Kansas State for one season, he was hired by old alma mater in 2007, and now three years later, West Virginia is where it hasn't been in 51 years. While Cincy upgraded academics, West Virginia upgraded hoops, very much so.

What, a journalist wondered of Huggins, inspires such loyalty among fans and players while at the same time the man can be the polarizing figure he was in the many seasons at Cincinnati?

"I would hope part of the reason,'' he said about the loyalty, "is because I treat people right, and the players know how much I care for them as a person. People see me on the floor, and they think that's the way I am all the time. But when it's over, I walk off the floor.''

And as to the other half of the question?

"I'm not sure what that means, ‘polarizing?' Cincinnati is a great town. I didn't want to leave.''

He didn't leave, he was shoved out. But he came home, to the country roads, the mountain mommas and now to the Final Four.