Published: June 19, 2009 03:27 am      

HERTZEL COLUMN: Producing pros key to Big East hoops success

MORGANTOWN — Sometimes even the most objective of us get blinded by the light, and so it has been at West Virginia University with its basketball team.

For the most part, since entering the Big East, the WVU program has been more a middle of the road program within the conference than a premier program. It has been a school that has been competitive and fit well, but other than a few sparkling moments, it has not reached the elite level.

Next year will be WVU’s 15th since joining the conference and it holds no conference basketball championship — be it regular season or tournament. During that same period of time the WVU football team won or shared four Big East championships.

There are signs, however, that this is about to change as Coach Bob Huggins is bringing in a completely different kind of basketball player than Gale Catlett or John Beilein brought in before him and is preparing them differently.

While it probably shouldn’t have a true correlation, the games being terribly different, teams that produce NBA players seem to have a huge advantage over teams that don’t.

Huggins, it would appear, is going to produce those NBA players.

The numbers show the correlation between having NBA-style players and success.

Let us first look at the regular season won-lost records in the Big East since WVU came into the league. The number of players selected in the NBA draft since WVU joined the Big East is in parentheses:

Connecticut (15) 169-67; Syracuse (8) 147-89; Villanova (8) 137-99; Pitt (4) 134-102; Georgetown (9) 124-112; Notre Dame (3) 123-113; West Virginia (2) 109-127; Providence (5) 108-128; St. John’s (5) 103-133; Seton Hall (2) 100-136; Rutgers (1) 69-149; Louisville (0) 48-20; Marquette (1) 43-25; Cincinnati (1) 26-42; DePaul (2) 20-48; South Florida (1) 11-57.

What conclusions can you reach from these numbers?

Certainly it’s no surprise that Connecticut, Syracuse, Villanova and Georgetown have produced the most professional draft choices, nor is it a surprise that UConn, Syracuse and Villanova have the best 14-year records.

If any team has overachieved it’s been Pitt, which has the fourth most victories over the time span but is sixth in number of NBA draft choices while Georgetown, which ranks second in draft choices, has underachieved with the fifth best record, just 12 games better than .500.

As for West Virginia, despite two Sweet 16 teams and one Elite Eight team, it has played less than .500 basketball over its stay in the conference and has had only Gordon Malone, who didn’t make it, and Joe Alexander, recruited by Beilein but created by Huggins, go in the NBA draft over 14 years.

That the Mountaineers have been mostly a mid-level program in the Big East is verified by the fact that they never have finished better than third in the conference while finishing seventh or lower on six occasions.

With the draft coming up next week, West Virginia’s number of NBA draftees is not expected to grow, Alex Ruoff appearing to be a free agent choice at best.

It could well be, however, that this is the last year that the Mountaineers fail to land players in the draft.

There is almost no one who believes that sophomore forward Devin Ebanks isn’t playing his final collegiate season this year, already having been projected as high as a No. 13 pick next season in some of those absurd mock drafts.

Huggins, rest assured, did not come home to West Virginia to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big East and he is aware that the way to win against the best is to bring in the best players. His approach is much different than both Catlett and Beilein, who believed they could win with their systems.

Catlett’s system obviously clashed with what the NBA sought as he never had a player he recruited make it to the big show during his 24 seasons while Beilein’s system de-emphasized athleticism at the expense of winning off its unique approach to both offense and defense.

Huggins has his own theories about offense and defense, but they are hardly unique. He is going to be big and tough and play you head up. He wants players who are bigger, stronger, faster and tougher than the other team has, which is exactly what the NBA does.

With his third season coming up, Huggins’ WVU team is already being looked upon as being among the top three in the Big East for next season and as a budding national power, one that will produce championships where once simply victories were acceptable.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com or through Facebook.