Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston, WV Daily Mail Sports Editor
Wednesday May 10, 2006
MORGANTOWN -- His basketball program is so on the map, John Beilein can't seem to get his
name off the rumor mill.
While the veteran West Virginia University coach has come to grips with the price of fame,
his connection with North Carolina State has been confirmed and confined to this:
His Mountaineers will be playing the ACC's Wolfpack in December at the Charleston Civic
Center.
Beilein loses five seniors that carried WVU to NCAA regional final and Sweet Sixteen
appearances. Forty percent of those players will be selected in the NBA Draft.
On 2006-07, he may be mad, but Beilein is not striking the Alfred E. Neuman "What, me
worry?" pose.
"You can't have it both ways," Beilein said, sitting in his office, considering how high the
bar, perhaps, has been raised for a roster that will include 62 percent new players.
"I do know we're all hungry to do it again.
"I just hope people will be as patient as they were four years ago ... when those guys were
sophomores we had a rocky stretch, but they came through it ... I do have a sense people
want us to get better quicker than we did (with the exiting seniors)."
In the coming winter, WVU will play a more rigorous schedule than Pittsnogle & Co. did four
years ago and not just because the Big East Conference is deeper.
However the season turns out, the highlight reel could be titled "Young and Younger." Led by
senior forward Frank Young, this group of Mountaineers, which will be dominated by little to
no collegiate experience, will have one plus over the WVU Gansey Dancers.
Once classes begin in late August, revised NCAA basketball rules allow a team two hours of
practice weekly until regular workouts begin in mid-October.
When you're trying to install a thinking man's system like Beilein's, that togetherness time
on the floor is significant.
Of seven freshmen signees, at least three and, perhaps, four will be redshirted. At least
one figures to start. Beilein will need to count on at least three incoming recruits, as
well at 7-foot Butler transfer Jamie Smalligan, for significant minutes.
"A lot is probably going to depend on the freshmen's learning curve," Beilein said. "When we
started four years ago, those freshmen, their learning curve was incredible. You just never
know."
The 53-year-old coach doesn't like as large a class as he has, but he likes his class. Only
one is ranked in the nation's top 100 recruits by talent scout Bob Gibbons, but five of the
seven are in the Top 250.
Beilein uses a different "star" system, however, rooting his prospecting on what you might
call an S-curve -- savvy and swagger.
"Their attitudes are things I really value," Beilein said. "Do they have swagger?
"You don't just watch kids play. You watch how they go into and come out of the huddle, how
they interact with teammates. I'm asking not only whether a guy can play, but what kind of
teammate he is ... you do a lot of research with their coaches."
Among the recruits, Beilein calls 6-foot-5 Illinois native Devan Bawinkel "kind of a combo
of Patrick (Beilein) and Johannes (Herber) ... smart and really can shoot it. You score 52
and 51 (points) in a game, which he did (this season) ... he just feels the game.
"Joe Mazzulla (Warwick, R.I.) is a good, left-handed point guard -- a point guard who can
score, but a scorer who plays the point. Cam Thoroughman (Portsmouth, Ohio) is just a player
and at 6-7 can play a couple of places.
"Wellington (Smith) and Da'Sean (Butler), the guys from (New) Jersey, they're Tyrone
Sally-types," continued Beilein, drawing on WVU recent history for a point of reference.
"Nobody uses pogo sticks anymore these days, but they're pogo-stick players and they're
talented, too.
"Jacob Green (Clinton, Md.) is the kind of player you don't see an awful lot. You look at
him and think back to seeing him two years earlier and you ask how he's done that, since
he's now 6-9 with a great chance to develop into a really good college player.
"Then, there's Jonnie West. He needs to build strength and develop, but when people see him
shoot it and how he shoots it, it's going to bring back a lot of memories around here (of
his legendary father, Jerry)."
Not that Beilein wants or needs any more reminders about N.C. State, but there is a date in
history that became something of a marker for his construction program.
When Beilein's third-year Mountaineers won at State to go 10-0 in early January 2005, WVU's
entrance into the Associated Press Top 25 at No. 21 two days later was the first time a
Beilein-coached team had been in that poll.
It was an arrival for the program.
"Our upperclassmen, like Frank, Darris (Nichols), they seem as committed to getting better
now as the guys who are leaving," Beilein said. "We're not starting over, but you ask if
there's a next chapter.
"Whatever, it's been a fairy tale. So, are there more chapters to write in that fairy tale
or is it a new book we're starting to write?"
Anybody who is acquainted with Beilein knows he isn't ready to pick a starting lineup, but
my guess probably would be (one through five) Nichols, Bawinkel, sophomore Alex Ruoff, Young
and Smalligan -- with sophomore Joe Alexander, Butler, Mazzulla and backup center Rob
Summers first off the bench.
Beilein may go nine or 10 players deep, which would be unusual for him. His new Mountaineers
may even trap and pressure earlier than a halfcourt 1-3-1 zone. They may play "longer" and
will be more athletic than the team that won 77 games and many more hearts.
"I know this," Beilein said of his youngsters. "They have the talent to want to be coached
and that's a talent not everyone has.
"Alex and Joe mostly sat and watched those seniors this past season and those seniors were
mentors. For those guys and Frank and Darris and Rob, we're turning the page.
"It's got to be ?OK, now it's my turn.'"
|
