I'm still peeved about the length of his suspension. John Wall GOT PAID for playing basketball in high school, and he gets a 2 game suspension after paying back the money. Deniz never got a dime, and he gets 20 games? That ain't right. But Kentucky gets all the breaks. I bet if Deniz had signed with the Wildcats, instead of WVU, he'd have been playing all season. That just ain't right...

MSNsportsNET Wrote:Deniz's Debut
By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
February 1, 2010


Deniz Kilicli will make his WVU debut Wednesday night againt Pitt at the WVU Coliseum.
Joe Sadlek/All-Pro Photography

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Jerry West scored 9 points in his college debut against VMI on Dec. 3, 1957. I only mention that because I am getting the impression that some people are expecting super human things from freshman center Deniz Kilicli in his WVU debut on Wednesday night against Pitt.

Kilicli, you may recall, was suspended by the NCAA for the first 20 games of the season for playing on a team in Turkey that included a professional player. His suspension ended Saturday after West Virginia’s 77-74 victory over Louisville that boosted the Mountaineers’ record to 17-3.

The one opportunity WVU fans got to see Kilicli perform was in the exhibition game against the University of Charleston on Dec. 5 when he scored 18 points. That’s pretty good, but Charleston is not Pitt.

“It’s been three months,” said Kilicli Friday. “I’ve just been working out, trying to keep my head into the practices and work as hard as I can.”

“They’re always better when you don’t have them than when you get them,” joked West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.

That’s definitely true, but what Kilicli (6-foot-9 and 265 pounds) could ultimately add to the Mountaineer rotation is a big guy in the paint who can score near the basket. At least that is what Huggins is hoping for.

“We just have a hard time down there,” Huggins said. “KJ (Kevin Jones) has done a heck of a job but you combine those two and Deniz can score against bigger people. He’s so much wider – he can create so much more space.”

Essentially, through the first 20 games of the season what Huggins has had available near the basket were wing players in Devin Ebanks, Wellington Smith, Jones, John Flowers and Cam Thoroughman.

The player probably most affected is Smith, who will finally be free to play more on the wing where he has shown the ability this year to knock down open jump shots.

“I think it helps us because we don’t have to play Wells as heavy of minutes (in the post),” said Huggins. “What that guy does day in and day out … everybody is bigger than him. He has to fight for position every second he’s on the floor.”

According to Huggins, the coaching staff started prepping Kilicli for specific things a week ago in anticipation for this Wednesday’s game against Pitt.

“We’ve been trying to lean on him a little bit more the last week or so to try and get him ready and make sure he understands, conceptually, what we need to get done,” Huggins explained.

That may take a while, or it might not.

Of course there are a lot of factors that come into play. Is his game conditioning where it needs to be? How will the big crowds affect him? Can he match the physical play required of Big East centers? Can he rebound? Will he be able to defend?

“I think I’m going to be nervous for sure because there is going to be a crazy crowd in here, but that’s what I do – that’s my job,” Kilicli said. “If he calls my name I will go in there and play.”

Kilicli admits that it has been tough watching his buddies play, particularly when the team is away from campus on road trips.

“We are a good team friendship wise and when they are gone there is nothing to do,” Kilicli says. “I just sit at the dorm and watch the game and I’m like, ‘Come on, man.’ I’m waiting for the guys to turn back. It’s soon that I’m going to be traveling with them.”

In the meantime, Kilicli has been strumming on his electric guitar to help pass the time. That’s right, electric guitar.

“I’ve played guitar for like 12 years,” he said. “That’s the second side of my life. After practice I just go home and play guitar for a couple of hours. I’m like, ‘I’m relaxed now. I can go to sleep.’”

Kilicli plays what he calls “old-school stuff” – which is amusing to us 40-somethings because what he calls old-school is actually contemporary to us.

“My uncle used to play basketball and now he’s a musician,” said Kilicli. “He always said, ‘Don’t play guitar that much because it’s good stuff when you get on stage. If you do it too much you won’t want to play basketball.’ (Basketball) is what I love. Guitar is just a thing.”

That is certainly music to Bob Huggins’ ears. Then again, you don’t see too many 6-9 guys standing on stage playing lead guitar (my department music expert says Steve Vai is 6-3, although I have no idea who that is).

The coach was asked last week if he’s had a chance to listen to Kilicli play guitar.

“No I haven’t,” he chuckled, “but I’m looking forward to it, though.”

On a more serious note, Huggins is looking forward to having his first true post player since Joe Alexander in 2008.

“I’m just going to play as hard as I can and we’ll just see what is going to happen because I haven’t played a Big East game yet,” said Kilicli. “I didn’t grow up watching the Big East. The players are great. I think it’s going to be a good time.”

Huggins is naturally taking a cautious approach to Kilicli’s debut on Wednesday night.

“It remains to be seen how fast we can get him up to snuff defensively because he can’t be like a couple of other guys where you put them in to make a shot and their guys makes three,” Huggins said. “That’s just a bad tradeoff. He’s big enough, strong enough and he’s got good enough feet that he can guard.”

Kilicli, too, is taking a realistic approach. He said the expectations can be limitless.

“You can say anything,” he said. “You can say 60 points and 30 rebounds, but the best thing for me is that I’ll help my team. I’m not talking about stats or anything. Maybe get a couple of rebounds, some blocks, and a couple of points. That would be the best story for me.”

If Kilicli can somehow get the 9 points and 13 rebounds on Wednesday night against the Panthers that Jerry West produced against VMI in 1957, I will gladly take it.

And I know a certain basketball coach with more than 650 wins who would take that in a heartbeat as well.

By the way, his name is pronounced Ka-leech-luh, for those interested in getting things right...

Here's another article on Kilicli from SI.com...

Sports Illustrated Wrote:Is Turkish beast Deniz Kilicli the missing piece for West Virginia?
By Luke Winn
Posted: Tuesday February 2, 2010 11:44AM
Updated: Tuesday February 2, 2010 3:14PM

The biggest wild card in college basketball's stretch run will make his debut on Wednesday, against Pittsburgh at a sold-out WVU Coliseum.

His name is Deniz Kilicli (pronounced "Kah-LITCH-luh"), and there's certainly a chance that his impact on West Virginia's season will be limited. It would be unfair to him to expect too much. He's a Turkish freshman who's only been in the U.S. for a little more than two years, was forced by the NCAA to sit out for the Mountaineers' first 20 regular-season games, and has only seen college action in two exhibitions. He's not yet in peak game condition.

But Kilicli is also a rugged, 6-foot-9, 260-pound power forward who could be an NBA draft prospect in a few seasons, and West Virginia coach Bob Huggins already calls him "our best low-post scorer." So can you blame us for being intrigued, when no other top-10 team is adding a new player like this in February? The Mountaineers have gone 17-3 (and 6-2 in the Big East) without Kilicli, but, as his prep school coach from Mountain State Academy, Rob Fulford, says: "One thing they're kind of missing is an a--hole. And he can play like an a--hole."

Kilicli's college career, like that of numerous international players before him, was stalled by an NCAA amateurism issue -- one that seems unfair, and, strangely, involves a member of George Mason's magical run to the Final Four in 2006. In 2007-08, Kilicli was playing for Pertevniyal, the Turkish Second Basketball League (or TBL2) farm club of Istanbul powerhouse Efes Pilsen. Pertevniyal is typically a team of promising young Turks, and Kilicli never signed a pro contract. Prior to that season, though, the big club signed former Patriots star (and Sports Illustrated cover boy) Lamar Butler, and when he didn't make Efes Pilsen's roster, he spent the season as a starter for Pertevniyal.

Because Kilicli had played in games with a pro, the NCAA defined him as professional and handed down an 11-game ban, with nine more games tacked on for meal-and-lodging benefits received while playing with Butler -- harsh, given that Americans in premiere AAU programs can legally stay in posh Vegas hotels and receive free food.

"I didn't know any NCAA rules at the time," Kilicli said, and this is understandable, given that he was 17 at the time and barely spoke any English. "I thought if you don't get paid, you're alright."

That wasn't the case, and Kilicli had to cope with being ineligible for the first three months of his freshman season, taking out his frustrations in the weight room and on the practice floor. "He handled it well -- a lot better than I would have," says Huggins. "I wouldn't have been very happy. How was he supposed to know [not to play with Butler]?"

It was worst when the Mountaineers went on the road, because Kilicli had to stay behind in Morgantown. While they were at the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif., over Thanksgiving weekend, he was stuck, alone, in an international dorm that had remained open on campus. He tried to watch games on ESPN, but it became so frustrating ("I'd get too pissed, and have to turn it off," he says) that he'd just resort to following the score on the Internet.

Not that seeing games live wasn't difficult, too: During West Virginia's lone home loss this season, to Syracuse on Jan. 16, he watched in agony as Orange big men Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson bulled their way to the rim for a combined 14 points and 17 rebounds.

"I came to America to play basketball," says Kilicli, "and I see all these guys in the Big East who are so big, strong and talented, and I just want to compete with them. I kept thinking to myself, 'Let me out there with Onuaku!' "

The Mountaineers won't get a regular-season rematch with Syracuse, but they won't mind having a 260-pound bruiser to go up against plenty of the teams remaining on their schedule, especially Pitt (Feb. 3 and Feb. 12), Cincinnati (Feb. 27) and Georgetown (March 1). Huggins already has an abundance of forwards at his disposal, so many that he once used a five-forward lineup with Da'Sean Butler at the point. But pairing Kilicli with stellar 6-8 rebounder Kevin Jones in the post, while using 6-9 Devin Ebanks at shooting guard and 6-7 Butler on the wing, could make West Virginia, which already ranks third in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage (at 42.7 percent), an even scarier team on the offensive glass -- and a viable dark-horse pick for the Final Four.

Huggins doesn't know when, exactly, he's going to use Kilicli on Wednesday; the coach only says, "We're gonna throw him in there and see what he does." Kilicli reportedly can, like a lot of European big men, pass and shoot well. The original tape he sent to Fulford -- through Pertevniyal teammate Can Korkmaz, who was already headed to the Beckley, W.Va., prep school -- contained so many shooting clips that Fulford said he was worried that it was all Kilicli did. When he tried out for the team in person, he banged around more than enough to earn a scholarship. Nowadays, he mainly considers himself "another big body" to add to West Virginia's lineup. Fulford says Kilicli is ambidextrous (shots in the lane are usually left-handed, while jumpers are right-handed) and has hands so enormous that "when he holds a basketball, it looks like he's holding a tennis ball."

In the Mountaineers' two exhibitions, Huggins threw Kilicli into the fire. On Nov. 8 against Mountain State University, he had eight points and six rebounds in 18 minutes. On Dec. 5 against the University of Charleston, he started (instead of normal post Wellington Smith) and scored 18 points -- an dished out five assists and grabbed four boards -- in 28 minutes. Bob Bolen, whose Mountain State University team is undefeated and ranked No. 1 in NAIA, said he thought Kilicli "fit right into West Virginia's rotation, and can definitely help them." In an act of Mountaineer state solidarity, Bolen declined to share film of that exhibition with West Virginia opponents who requested it in November, and thus limited footage of Kilicli is in circulation. (When I called Bolen from a number he didn't recognize last week, he was initially hesitant to share much info about Kilicli, for fear I was a Big East assistant snooping for intel.)

Big East teams should have tape of Kilicli soon enough. He's been waiting for this Pitt game since the fall, recently switching his countdown from days to hours as the big moment approaches. "It's just a little over 48 now," he excitedly said on Monday, and he's been doing everything he can to make the time pass, from playing his guitar, to extending his workouts, to sitting in WVU Coliseum, staring at empty seats, imagining what Wednesday night will be like. No one, not even Kilicli, is sure of what will happen. But we can all, at the very least, permit ourselves to be curious.