NEW YORK -- The West Virginia basketball team is learning why they call New York the city that never sleeps.

	Today What: NIT championship. Who: West Virginia (26-9) vs. Clemson (25-10). When: 7 p.m. Where: Madison Square Garden, New York. TV: ESPN2.

At around 3 a.m. yesterday morning, head coach John Beilein and his wife were awakened in their hotel room. With Beilein's key, West Virginia's team manager walked in to deliver game tapes. The staff had been up all night cutting them in preparation for the National Invitation Tournament final tonight against the Clemson Tigers.

Guard Darris Nichols also was up in the middle of the night. He was still coming down from his 3-pointer at the buzzer in the 63-62 semifinal victory against Mississippi State. And he was nervous about the task ahead.

"It would mean a lot to win it when nobody expected us to do anything this season," he said.

Like West Virginia, Clemson earned its trip to the championship game in the dying seconds of its matchup against Air Force, though it was more a case of avoiding defeat than stealing victory. Ahead by 10 with 2:12 left, Clemson opened the door for Air Force to rally, and a 3-pointer with four seconds left closed the gap to one. But the Tigers held on to win, 68-67.

With both semifinals going down to the wire, West Virginia senior forward Frank Young expects an intense game tonight.

"They press for the whole game and they push the ball so well in transition because they're so athletic," he said.

Young, who leads the Mountaineers in points (15.1 per game), has carried West Virginia through the NIT, with his 25-point performance against North Carolina State in the quarterfinal among the highlights. The game tonight will mark the end of a collegiate career that took him to the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament the previous two seasons.

Clemson point guard Vernon Hamilton also will finish his career tonight against the team he nearly joined out of high school. But Hamilton, who averages 12.2 points per game, only ranks third on a team where all five starters average in double digits.

It was that powerful offense that had the Tigers on the fast track to the NCAA tournament most of the year. Clemson started 17-0 before it collapsed in conference play and lost nine of 13 games, settling for a No. 1 seeding in the NIT.

"We went through a rough patch," coach Oliver Purnell said, "but the games we lost were all close."

Though the NIT has often been dismissed as the competition to determine the "66th-best team in the country," both coaches know the importance of ending on a high note.

"Only two teams finish their season with a win," Beilein said. "We'll be one of them."

For the Mountaineers, then, a good night's sleep might be a small price to pay.

NOTES -- On the road to Madison Square Garden, Clemson beat East Tennessee State, 64-57, Mississippi, 89-68, and Syracuse, 74-70, in the quarterfinals. ... West Virginia defeated Delaware State, 74-50, Massachusetts, 90-77, and North Carolina State, 71-66, before beating Mississippi State. ... Beilein and Purnell have met before when they were coaching at Richmond and Dayton in the Atlantic 10. ... Clemson frequently uses a play called the "Richmond screen," which Beilein invented.