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West Virginia seemed to have stolen a victory, but in the end, the Mountaineers felt as if they'd had their pockets picked.
The Mountaineers appeared to have scored a 51-50 Atlantic 10 Conference victory over St. Joseph's Saturday at Philadelphia when Lester Rowe dunked a missed shot by Vernon Odom at the buzzer. The shot touched off a wild celebration by the WVU players.
Both teams returned to their locker rooms, and La Salle and Army warmed up for the second game of a doubleheader. However, officials Dutch Shample, Stan Rote and Ernie Cage conferred in their locker room and decided that Rowe caught and dunked the ball after the buzzer.
The basket was disallowed, and the Hawks (5-5) were ruled 50-49 winners, while the Mountaineers (4-6) suffered their fifth straight loss.
"I've been coaching 26 years and I've never seen points taken off the scoreboard 10 minutes after a game," WVU assistant coach Gary McPherson said.
"We're in the locker room getting dressed with a plane to catch, and the referee came in and told us we lost. The referee called it good, and no one went to the table to check. As far as we're concerned, the game is over, and we won."
The decision by the officials touched off a heated exchange among WVU Coach Gale Catlett, Shample and Lou Bonder, the conference's supervisor of...