Last Call
February 26, 2006 03:55 PM | General
February 26, 2006
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| Beilein | Collins | Gansey | Herber | Pittsnogle |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The five players that brought us that remarkable upset victory over nationally ranked Florida and a 14-15 record as freshmen in 2003, to making the NIT as sophomores in 2004 and then to last year’s unbelievable NCAA tournament Elite Eight run, will bid farewell to the WVU Coliseum Monday night.
It is to be the curtain call of curtain calls against arch rival Pitt in a game televised nationally on ESPN at 7 pm. There are no tickets remaining.
West Virginia coach John Beilein admits it will be difficult watching those five outstanding young men run out onto the carpet for the very last time. One of those five seniors happens to be his oldest son Patrick.
“It will be tough,” Beilein said. “My wife (Kathleen) has been very supportive of him and me during this time through the whole thing. For all of us, we associate West Virginia with our son and it’s going to be tough on Monday going through that but I think everybody just wants to keep on playing games and winning and getting back to the NCAA tournament.”
Beilein admits it seems like just yesterday when he made the decision four years ago to stick with this core group of players when he wasn’t even remotely sure where they were going to take him.
“It’s amazing because when I first got here I think it was Delaware State and maybe UNC Greensboro and I would look out at the crowds for those first couple of games and they were smaller than the games with my Richmond teams,” Beilein recalled. “And now to see all of these sellouts back-to-back … that says a lot about the direction they have been able to go in.”
The pieces really couldn’t have fit any better. J.D. Collins and Joe Herber were Beilein’s first pair of recruits along with Patrick, who originally came to WVU as a walk-on. All three were going to play for Beilein at Richmond until he decided to take the West Virginia job.
Kevin Pittsnogle was inherited from the previous coaching staff and Mike Gansey came a year later after transferring from St. Bonaventure.
“Mike has only been here three years and the rest of the guys four years, but they’ve done everything we’ve asked them as far as just hanging in there and doing their best,” Beilein said.
The coach remembers his very first task right after he took the WVU job was to drive over to Martinsburg to make sure Pittsnogle was still on board. Beilein tried unsuccessfully to recruit him at Richmond and he knew that having a 6-foot-11-inch shooting center was a very important piece to the puzzle.
“I probably had to solidify it because obviously Gale (Catlett) and his staff recruited him and he was closer to those people,” Beilein said. “I had tried to recruit him at Richmond and was unsuccessful. I think he was the first person I went to see.”
Nearly 1,600 points later, Pittsnogle is perhaps the best 3-point shooting big-man to play college basketball since the adoption of the 3-point line in the mid 1980s.
“Now he’s got 1,500 points or something like that,” Beilein marveled. “He’s been a great kid to coach. When he was a 17-year-old when we got to know him to now as a father with a child and is married; it’s been a very pleasant maturation there.”
Gansey was a big-time player in Beilein’s eyes, too: his hustle and extra effort giving Beilein fits when his Richmond teams always played St. Bonaventure. Beilein made it a point to tell his coaches that Gansey was the type of player they needed to recruit.
“I was very fond of Mike from watching him at St. Bonaventure,” Beilein said. “I don’t really look at people and expect certain things but he has certainly been a great addition. I’m never surprised because I never anticipate how good they are going to be. I just hope they work hard and they’re good teammates.”
No teammates have been better and more supportive than J.D. Collins and Joe Herber. Collins withstood two significant challenges to his starting job and in both instances he was able to rise to the occasion.
Louisville coach Rick Pitino paid Collins a high compliment after Saturday’s game, comparing him favorably to his former point guard Anthony Epps at Kentucky. Collins is going to walk away from West Virginia University ranked among the school’s career top 10 in assists, and he’s also going to leave here with a great amount of respect from basketball savvy West Virginia fans.
Joe Herber has used his brains and his brawn to become one of the school’s most well-rounded players. For four years he’s been asked to guard everyone from the opposing team’s point guard to its center, while also handling the ball out on the perimeter. His 1,020 points, 485 rebounds, 446 assists and 154 steals will forever be a lasting testament to the type of all-around player he is.
And of course there is Patrick Beilein, the coach’s son who used to get abused by other teams’ fans until he was able to quiet them with 3-point bomb after 3-point bomb. Beilein is only 48 points shy of scoring 1,000 for his career despite starting just one game as a sophomore in 2004. His 229 3-point field goals ranks second to Pittsnogle’s 233 in WVU history. What’s more, he’s like another coach on the floor making the timely steal, out-hustling a bigger player for a crucial rebound or calling a critical timeout to save a possession.
“It’s hard for me to talk about seniors because you get so close to them and then one of them is your son,” Beilein said. “There will be a lot of deep breaths to even talk about it.”
All told, this group has combined to score 4,919 career points and win 74 of 122 games (60.7 percent) against one of the most difficult schedules in school history. Fourteen of those 74 wins have come against nationally ranked teams and the group has won 18 of 30 games over the last two seasons playing in the best basketball conference in the country.
“This is the class,” Beilein said. “We went with them really in their sophomore year when we brought in some very good recruits, but after five or six weeks it was clear that this first class had the things that I was looking for to build a program. We have basically never given up on them even though there have been some dark days here and there. And we won’t give up on them until they tell us that we can’t play anymore.”
