February 10 Notebook
February 10, 2006 04:19 PM | General
February 10, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – This weekend’s West Virginia University news and notes, including an update on men’s basketball’s six November signees:
Six-two guard JOE MAZZULA has his Bishop Hendricken (R.I.) High School team off to an undefeated start and was extensively profiled in last month’s Providence Journal. Mazzula averaged better than 16 points per game last year to lead Hendricken to its second straight Rhode Island state title. Mazzula is considered by many to be Rhode Island’s top college prospect.
Six-seven do-everything forward WELLINGTON SMITH chose to spend an extra year at Blair Academy in Blairsville, N.J. to improve his overall game. Last year as a senior at Summit High School in Summit, N.J., Smith averaged 20.5 points per game and led his team to the New Jersey Group 2 championship game. Blair Academy, which has produced such recent college standouts as Luol Deng and Charlie Villaneuva, is 12-12 so far this season. Smith’s Blair Academy teammate Shamari Spears is headed to Boston College.
Six-five guard DEVAN BAWINKEL recently scored his 2,000th career point and needs 249 more to rank among the top 50 scorers in Illinois prep history. Bawinkel, the state’s No. 4-rated prospect by one online scouting service, is looking to take Winnebago back to the Illinois Class A state title game. Bawinkel scored a career-high 52 points in a game earlier this year.
Six-nine center JACOB GREEN is currently averaging 10.3 points per game at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. Green scored a season-high 21 points in a game against Carroll High School on Dec. 10, and had a stretch when he scored double figures in seven of nine games. His team is currently 11-13 with three regular season games remaining.
According to the Portsmouth Daily Times, 6-7 guard CAM THOROUGHMAN injured his knee on Dec. 30 after landing awkwardly following a dunk against Symmes Valley High School, but he’s expect to return to the Clay High School lineup in time for the Ohio state playoffs. The Portsmouth, Ohio, resident was averaging 20.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game before his injury.
West Virginia’s early signing class has earned praise from several high school talent scouts. Hoop Scoop Magazine rates Coach John Beilein’s early recruiting class 33rd-best in the country. And three WVU signees were rated among Bob Gibbons’ top 150 prep prospects in Bawinkel (#99), Mazulla (#106), and Butler (#124).
Smith and Butler were both rated among the nation’s top 125 prep prospects by Rivals.com.
Briefly:
Presently, it has been reported that Buffalo is considering doing the same thing, exploring a game with Auburn for a much bigger guarantee. Schools have every right to secure the best possible deals and in today’s dog-eat-dog world of college football, it’s almost a prerequisite.
But at some point there has to be a cut off. Football schedules are just turning over too fast.
Even though this is probably more of an ethical issue, I believe the NCAA needs to step in and take a look at some type of measure to eliminate schools from pulling out of games after a certain point, perhaps the cut off being a year in advance. Obviously the buy-out clauses aren’t stiff enough to dissuade schools from getting out of signed contracts, especially with the money some schools in the SEC are now willing to throw around to buy wins, so the only recourse is for the NCAA to somehow reestablish some sort of schedule integrity. Otherwise you're going to continue to see schools out-bid games from other schools.
Maybe what it amounts to is placing a cap on the amount of money guaranteed to visiting schools. For those that say the NCAA isn’t in the business of legislating integrity, well, take a look at this year’s NCAA manual. It’s about six inches thick and probably half of it deals strictly with ethical situations.
And remember, this is the same outfit that said powerhouse football schools could no longer print Tolstoy-like 800-page football media guides.
When schools like Tennessee have to borrow money to pay its own bills then something is probably wrong.
West Virginia is going to need its two top-shooters to regain their shooting stroke in order to have a strong finish heading into postseason play.
Well, it looks like men’s soccer coach Mike Seabolt is taking a different approach. All 10 of the U.S. high school players Seabolt signed in this year’s recruiting class have at least a 3.0 grade point average and have scored higher than 1,000 on their SAT examinations. All 10 will also receive some type of academic scholarship assistance as well.
“We are very pleased with the type of student-athlete we were able to attract for this class,” Seabolt said. “Hopefully we are adding more to this campus than just a competitive team by bringing in a diverse group of quality students.”
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| Former Mountaineer pitcher Dustin Nippert had a 1-0 record with a 5.52 earned run average in three appearances with the Arizona Diamonbacks last year.
AP Photo |
It was near the beginning of the fall semester and Coury was anxious to sign the unknown prospect before he enrolled in college because once a player steps on campus scouts can no longer have contact with them.
Coury telephoned Nippert’s house and his mother answered the phone.
“Is Dustin there? I’d like to talk to him,” he began, fully prepared to offer Nippert a pretty nice signing bonus.
“Dustin can’t come to the phone,” his mother answered.
“Why?”
“Well, he’s outside chasing a bull,” said his mother.
Coury tried telephoning a couple of more times but was unable to get in touch with the pitcher before he enrolled at West Virginia University. It seems an escaped bull from Nippert’s family farm turned out to be the difference between Mountaineer coach Greg Van Zant landing a top prospect or losing him to professional baseball.
As Paul Harvey says, and now you know the rest of the story!
Note: The views and opinions expressed here don’t necessarily reflect those of West Virginia University and the Mountaineer Sports Network.
