Basketball and Stuff

First of all, I finally got the new OK Go cd today. I'm directing you to their myspace page for all the videos they have on there. It's actually readable compared to most myspace pages. Anyhow, good cd! And speaking of finally, Kevin Pittsnogle was signed to a two year deal with the Celtics. Yeah, I think my job is to post about WVU. I guess I was looking for something else. My apologies. Congratulations Kevin!

I'm not much of an NBA fan, so I can't give an educated guess as to what team would be best for him. I'm glad he will be on the east coast. Wouldn't be to hard to make my way up to Cleveland. I'll be the one wearing the Mike Cooper fan club tee.

"Clearly, Kevin's strength is extending defenses with his range. He's big enough and he's got a quick trigger", agent Dan Tobin said. "He's a unique player, somewhat of a specialist at this point. We're trying to expand other areas of his game and I think that's what's going to help him make the transition."

There's a nice article on Darris Nichols over at MSN. He will be expected to carry a larger slice of the scoring this year. Personally, I think he has a lot more than what he's shown us so far.

"Because all of those guys were so good when you come in you don't want to do anything to disrupt the flow of the game," Nichols said. "You just come in and try to be solid."

Their is some doom and gloom about the upcoming year. And while I wouldn't ask these guys to try to duplicate the last two years, I don't think there is anything to worry about. They'll be young, but will have some experienced leadership in Darris and Frank Young. I am looking forward to seeing what Rob Summers and Jamie Smalligan can do this year.

Based on what he's seen so far, Nichols predicts improved play from 7-foot senior center Rob Summers this winter.

"He's gotten a lot stronger," Nichols said. "I think it's a confidence thing because he was playing behind Kevin and he knew that he wasn't going to play that much so he had that frame of mind. Next year, it's all up for grabs so he's got to make the best of his opportunity."

I'm also looking forward to seeing Alex Ruoff and Joe Alexander get some more playing time. They're both tall and athletic. Joe is said to be quite the dunker. I would love to see him run that back door cut and dunk! We've already seen Alex put in good time in big games last year. I thought he showed a lot of poise in those games.

I've stolen so much from MSN, and just incase you missed it, there is some video of some of the better return men from WVU. I just have to say, that it is time we move all the video and otseparatea to a seperate page. We at least need to have the video screen in the middle of the page.

I was wondering why they didn't try to slip in a Fulton Walker clip. Hell, they could have put that return in the superbowl in there for all I care. I know you wouldn't complain either. But I ran across this piece on former WVU football coach Frank Cignetti. Frank has taken a lot off of WVU fans over the years for his W-L record, but the guy is a big part of the growth of WVU football. He was here when the plans to build the new stadium were underway. And he did recruit a lot of the talent that sent us to 4 striaght bowls that launched this program.

Even though Cignetti rarely won recruiting battles against Penn State and Pitt, he still managed to sign several outstanding football players that rank among the best in school history: most notably linebackers Darryl Talley, Dennis Fowlkes and Delbert Fowler, quarterback Oliver Luck, defensive backs Jerry Holmes and Fulton Walker, wide receiver Cedric Thomas, and running backs Walter Easley and Robert Alexander.

There were also some of the best coaches in football on Cignetti's West Virginia coaching staffs, including Nick Saban, Gary Stevens, Joe Pendry, Greg Williams and Rick Trickett.

"I tell people Nick Saban and I got fired at the same time," laughed Dave Van Halanger. "He went on to become the highest paid coach in history."