Cook: Beilein still basks in glow of WVU's magical season
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Even now, almost a month later, all of it seems so, so ...
"Surreal?" John Beilein asked the other day.
"Is that the word I'm looking for?"
That will do.
North Carolina won the national championship, but no team took more from the NCAA tournament than West Virginia. Beilein, the Mountaineers' terrific coach, got a contract extension and a big raise, not to mention the kind of national respect that long was his in the coaching fraternity. His players enjoyed the ride of a lifetime. And their fans had just about the greatest month any fans could hope to have.
You know your team has had a good run when it introduces a new word to the English language.
Pittsnogled.
"I was on Dan Patrick's radio show and he said it sounded like something he did when he was 21 and had too much to drink," Beilein said, fairly giggling. "Then, I heard Brent Musberger said it during an NBA game when the big kid in Dallas" -- Dirk Nowitzki -- "stepped out and hit a 3."
The Spurs just got Pittsnogled!
"Unbelievable, isn't it?" Beilein asked.
All of it, actually. From West Virginia's stunning victories against Providence, Boston College and Villanova in the Big East Conference tournament to its more stunning wins against Creighton, Wake Forest and Texas Tech in the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers nearly Pittsnogled all the way to St. Louis and the Final Four, falling just short in overtime against Louisville, not so much losing as running out of gas after building a 20-point lead.
Even as his Louisville team prepared to play Illinois in a national semifinal game a week later, Rick Pitino couldn't stop talking about Beilein, West Virginia, its dead-on 18-of-24 3-point shooting and Kevin Pittsnogle, the best big, tall, tattooed 3-point shooter in America.
"You could see it in Rick's eyes after our game that he was happy to win, but that he also felt bad for us," Beilein said. "He knew he had just beaten a very good team, maybe one that had overachieved to get there."
You think Pitino was impressed?
You should have heard Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight.
"If I was just a fan, I would really enjoy watching West Virginia play because they are one of the best-coached teams and best-taught teams that I've seen in a long, long time."
Maybe that is what's most surreal to Beilein, that unabashed praise from the legends of his game, Knight, Pitino, and, after his Syracuse team had licked West Virginia in the Big East tournament championship game, Jim Boeheim. Beilein remembers when he was a young man, coaching at LeMoyne College, driving the team van through snowstorms in upstate New York, listening to the great Georgetown-Syracuse games on the radio. Back then, he never dared to dream he might one day coach against Boeheim for the Big East title on a Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, where the lights, literally and figuratively, are the brightest in college basketball.
"All I wanted to do," Beilein said, "was get out of that van."
There were stops at Canisius and Richmond before Beilein landed in the big time, if that's what you want to call West Virginia before this magical season. Many times, Beilein had to explain to recruits that the Mountaineers played in the Big East. He had to explain his style of play, his passion for the motion offense, which relies on selflessness and finding the open man, preferably for a back-door layup or a 3-point shot.
Not anymore.
"We're still playing catch-up with the Syracuses, Connecticuts and Pitts in recruiting," Beilein said. "But, at least now, we're getting in doors."
West Virginia wasted little time stepping up and rewarding Beilein, 52, with an extension through the 2012 season. There wasn't much chance he was going anywhere, though, despite reported interest by Virginia. His son, Patrick, will be a senior on a West Virginia team next season that should be a Big East favorite with Connecticut and Villanova. Beilein probably is closer to this team than any he has had because of his son's relationship with the players.
"People have asked how Patrick would do without me," Beilein said. "He would do just fine. But why would I want to miss that? That was pretty much a no-brainer for me. I never believed in the gun-for-hire, mercenary thing among coaches, anyway."
There's one other reason Beilein stayed at West Virginia. He loves being the big fish in a small pond. At Canisius, he had some fine teams but no one in Buffalo knew it. "They'd be talking about the Bills in February," he said.
That sort of thing is no longer a problem in Morgantown. They might be talking about one of their own, Adam "Pac-Man" Jones, going No. 6 overall in the NFL draft Saturday to the Tennessee Titans, the highest a Mountaineer has been picked. They might be talking about Pirates castoff and former record-breaking West Virginia high school quarterback J.R. House's chances of making their football team in the fall. They might even be talking about the possibility of the Steelers actually throwing to tight end Heath Miller next season. But it's hard to believe a day goes by without a little basketball talk, without someone remembering the miracle of a season that long will be discussed.
Yes, there's only way to describe the phenomenon.
In Morgantown, they've been Pittsnogled.
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