May 31 Notebook

By John Antonik for MSNsportsNET.com
May 31, 2006

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – CLARK RILEY, once a graduate assistant in our sports marketing office and now an assistant marketing director for the Michigan Wolverines in charge of men’s basketball, telephoned me late yesterday afternoon just as I was packing up my things to head home.

“Hey John,” said Clark. “How are you doing? I don’t know your email address so I thought I would call and see when you are going to write your next Campus Connection? You haven’t written one in a while.”

Well Clark, here you go.


	Most experts are predicting Mike Gansey to be taken in the second round of the NBA draft that will take place Wednesday, June 28, in New York City. AP photo

If the latest NBA mock drafts are to be believed, West Virginia could have two players selected for the first time since GREG JONES and RUSSEL TODD went in the third and sixth rounds of the 1983 draft.

The most recent CNNSI.com mock draft has guard MIKE GANSEY going to Orlando with the 41st overall pick in the second round and center KEVIN PITTSNOGLE going to the Utah Jazz with the 46th overall pick.

NBAdraft.net has Gansey just missing the first round, going 31st overall to the Portland Trail Blazers and Pittsnogle going 33rd to the Atlanta Hawks. Another draft web site InsideHoops.com has Pittsnogle being taken in the first round (23rd overall) by the New Jersey Nets.

According to ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb, Gansey has workouts with 19 NBA teams leading up to the draft. Pittsnogle is currently working out at a sports training facility in Florida.

West Virginia has never had a pair of players picked in the top two rounds.

The NBA Draft will take place at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, June 28, at 7 pm and will be televised by ESPN.

West Virginia’s DAVID CARPENTER will know his professional destination either next Tuesday or Wednesday when Major League Baseball’s annual first-player draft commences June 6 at noon on MLB.com. The Mountaineer catcher is expected to go before the 20th round.

Football coach RICH RODRIGUEZ is anticipating a record turnout for his collection of football camps coming up in a couple of weeks. More than 1,500 campers will be on the Field Turf at Milan Puskar Stadium for Rodriguez’s individual camp for ages 14-17 on June 17-20 and the team camp for high school players on June 21-24.

Rodriguez also has commitments from 48 teams for his 7-on-7 passing camp. According to the Charleston Daily Mail’s Andrew Beckner, those three camps will net the football staff about $450,000 before expenses. Anyone still interested in signing up can contact the Mountaineer football office at (304) 293-4194.


	Patrick Beilein

PATRICK BEILEIN hasn’t pitched since Little League, but he has been called out of the bullpen to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Saturday’s Pittsburgh Pirates game against the San Diego Padres. Beilein is going in place of his father JOHN BEILEIN, who couldn’t attend the game because of a prior commitment. The Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the West Virginia University Alumni Association is having an outing planned for that date at PNC Park.

A couple of rules changes adopted by the NCAA and announced yesterday will impact college football and basketball games this year.

Under a proposal approved by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, the NCAA will now permit a football coach to challenge one ruling by officials per game and have it reviewed by replay provided any timeouts remain. If a coach’s challenge is successful, no timeout will be charged.

According to the Big East Conference, last year 54 plays were reviewed with 19 of the on-field decisions being reversed. The average amount of time for each play reviewed was 1:51. Nationally, 640 plays were reviewed with 193 of them being overturned. The national average per review was 1:55.

In basketball, the rules panel adopted a provision barring a player from calling a timeout while falling out of bounds or into the backcourt.

Although exact details haven’t been released yet (and won’t be for at least another month), the Big East Conference is putting the finishing touches on a record television deal with CBS and ESPN, according to today’s Providence Journal.

The Big East football schools shared approximately $15 million annually while basketball schools earned about $10 million in the previous TV agreement. The Journal reports that the new contract will guarantee multiple appearances for all 16 basketball playing schools.

“People are optimistic and feel good about where we are,” Big East commissioner MIKE TRANGHESE said. “There’s more focus on where we’re going and the fact that, you know what, this thing may work now.”

The Big East Football Conference has to be the youngest league in the country. All eight teams have at least 10 starters returning this fall, including 17 position starters each at Louisville and Cincinnati.

West Virginia, Connecticut, Rutgers and South Florida have 14 starters returning, Pitt has 12, and Syracuse has 10.

The Meineke Car Care Bowl announced Tuesday that it was adding Navy to the Big East pool of teams being considered in its selection process for this year’s bowl game to be played at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 30. Either Big East pick # 3 or Navy will face a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference in the 1 pm game to be played on ESPN.

Some observers thought Navy would have been a good fit for the Big East Football Conference when the league chose to expand by selecting Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida from Conference USA after the ACC raided Miami, Virginia Tech and then Boston College.

Of course Navy’s most appealing attribute is its name recognition.

West Virginia University’s sister school Potomac State is still alive in the 10-team Junior College World Series going on in Grand Junction, Colo. The Catamounts beat South Suburban (Ill.) on Saturday and downed Butler (Kan.) Community College Monday before falling to Wallace State (Ala.) 12-7 last night. Potomac State, coached by former WVU assistant baseball coach DOUG LITTLE, plays again today at 1 pm against Yavapai (Ariz.) Junior College.

Can you name the former Mountaineer basketball standout that played baseball at Yavapai Junior College in the early 1970s? The answer is at the bottom.

SCOTT SEABOL was recently honored as the Pacific Coast Offensive Player of the Week and is currently first in the PCL in home runs with 15 and is third in batting average with a .350 mark. Seabol appeared in 59 games with the St. Louis Cardinals last year before being claimed off waivers by the Florida Marlins, who optioned him to Triple-A Albuquerque. Seabol is playing second base for the Isotopes.

Former Mountaineer pitcher DUSTIN NIPPERT is forcing the Arizona Diamondbacks to make a decision about his professional future. The 6-foot-7-inch righthander leads the Pacific Coast League with a 7-0 record and has a 3.46 earned run average in 52 innings of work, striking out 45 and walking 21.

Arizona took a step in Nippert’s direction by trading Orlando Hernandez to the New York Mets for reliever Jorge Julio. That has opened up a spot in the Diamondbacks’ pitching rotation. Nippert was 1-0 with a 5.62 earned run average in three pitching appearances with Arizona after being called up last September.

The Managing General Partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks is West Virginia University graduate KEN KENDRICK.


	Avon Cobourne

AVON COBOURNE, West Virginia’s single season and career rushing record holder, is reviving his professional career with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. Cobourne played seven games with the Detroit Lions in 2003 and spent the 2004 season on the Lions’ practice squad. Last year, Cobourne was signed by the Miami Dolphins but was released in training camp.

He will have an uphill battle to land a starting job with the Alouettes, battling former NFL first-round draft pick Robert Edwards who ran for 1,199 yards for Montreal in 2005. If you recall, Edwards was one of the NFL’s most promising young runners before seriously injuring his knee playing in a nationally televised Beach Bowl flag-football event.

Also on the Montreal roster is quarterback SCOTT MCBRIEN, who will forever be remembered by Mountaineer Nation for delivering West Virginia’s playbook to RALPH FRIEDGEN at Maryland.

DWAYNE MUNDLE, a member of West Virginia’s Sugar Bowl championship team, is playing for the Edmonton Eskimos. The linebacker is a Toronto native and was taken in the third round of the 2006 CFL draft. The CFL preseason begins this weekend.

TERRY BOWDEN had this to write about RICH RODRIGUEZ in his most recent column for Yahoo Sports: “Is there any doubt Rich Rodriguez of West ‘by God’ Virginia did the best job of coaching in the country last year? He went 11-1, beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and had only one player taken in the NFL draft (in the sixth round).”

Former Notre Dame coach BOB DAVIE is also drinking the Kool-Aid, writing an expansive page-one article on Rodriguez’s spread offense for ESPN.com.


	Yelena Leuchanka

YELENA LEUCHANKA scored her first professional basket against Chicago in Charlotte’s season-opening loss on Saturday, May 20. Leuchanka scored five points in a 72-65 loss to Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 23. The 6-foot-5-inch center made the Charlotte Sting roster as a non-drafted free agent.

And finally, the financial landscape of collegiate athletics has changed considerably with the proliferation of sports agents. Ohio State recently signed its football coach Jim Tressel to a contract extension that will pay him $2.7 million in the final year of his contract. That is nearly one-third the amount Ted Turner paid for the Atlanta Braves in the mid 1970s.

The late Vince Lombardi had an interesting approach in dealing with sports agents. When one of Lombardi’s Green Bay Packer players brought an agent with him to negotiate a new contract, the coach excused himself from the meeting for a few moments. When he returned, he informed the player and his agent that they would now be negotiating with the Cleveland Browns.

Have a great week!

Answer: Stan Boskovich

Note: The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of West Virginia University or the Mountaineer Sports Network.

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