Huggins builds new team

College basketball is about to have a new dynasty emerge.

But this isn’t a feel-good story… College basketball is about to have a new dynasty emerge.

But this isn’t a feel-good story about how promising a future the Pitt Panthers team has ahead of them. As a matter of fact, the Panthers’ future might seriously be affected — and not exactly for the better.

A few weeks ago, former Cincinnati head basketball coach Bob Huggins was hired to fill the coaching void at Kansas State. And already, Huggins is banging the pavement to assemble his college basketball “Dream Team.”

What Huggins is doing is this: He’s not recruiting players to come to wonderful Manhattan, Kan. He’s recruiting coaches that are close to players — good players, too.

Michael Beasley, one of the top-five players in the country’s class of 2007, committed to play for Atlantic-10’s Charlotte last year. A top-five player to Charlotte — why? Beasley is close to Charlotte assistant coach Dalonte Hill, as reported by CBS Sportsline’s Gregg Doyel.

Beasley will go to Charlotte, that is, if Hill is still there. But guess who’s first on Huggins’ coaching wish list? That’s right — Dalonte Hill. And should Huggins lure Hill away from Charlotte, most likely Beasley will come right behind him.

It’s referred to in the sports world as a “package deal,” and Huggins is to the package deal as Wayne Gretzky was to scoring goals. It happens when a coach is hired, and a player joins the coach as part of the proverbial package. It’s not illegal, but it’s close.

Remember when Mark McGwire was taking the performance enhancer androstenedione in the midst of his home-run glory? Andro wasn’t illegal in baseball while the slugger was on it, but it was considered to give its taker an unfair advantage.

It’s kind of like that.

Although the Hill-Beasley package hasn’t yet been delivered to Huggins and Kansas State, it’s been all but signed for. And as for the rest of the mail, well, let’s say Huggins is lined up for a number of deliveries in the near future.

The next coach Huggins is after is a man named Dwayne Barnes. Barnes just happens to be the AAU coach — not to mention legal guardian — of the No. 1-ranked high school player in the country in the class of 2007, O.J. Mayo. If the Barnes-Mayo package is delivered to Huggins, he’ll have a college basketball team with more talent than the Atlanta Hawks.

But neither of these deals affects Pitt quite like the one you’re about to hear. Last season, a 6-foot-9 forward from nearby Aliquippa High School gave Jaime Dixon and the Panthers a verbal commitment. His name was Herb Pope, and currently he’s ranked as the seventh-best player in the class of 2007.

Since then, Pope has rescinded his committment. Why? Because J.O. Stright, the coach of Pittsburgh’s AAU team, the JOTS, has a very good friend that was recently hired as the head coach at Kansas State. All of the sudden, Pope has a newfound interest in the Wildcats and Huggins.

It goes deeper than that, even. Last year, Pope was rumored to have enrolled in Arlington County Day School, a prep school in south Florida. Had Pope gone there instead of returning to Aliquippa like he did, he would have played AAU ball for the Miami Tropics, where a man named Art Alvarez is the coach. Art Alvarez has a very good friend named Frank Martin. Frank Martin was an assistant at Cincinnati this year under Andy Kennedy, and instead of following Kennedy to Mississippi next year, Martin is packing his bags and heading for Manhattan, Kansas.

See how complex the Huggins web is?

What’s even worse is that the Panthers have a verbal commitment from another Pittsburgh-area player, Terelle Pryor, who is ranked as one of the top players in the class of 2008. Pryor also plays for the JOTS and Stright, and is rumored to be looking to enroll in prep school.

I heard south Florida is nice this time of year.

Bob Huggins is doing what he’s always done. He’s not buying into the popular three-year rebuilding process that has been tagged on a number of college basketball’s emerging powerhouses. Huggins wants to win big, and he’ll do whatever it takes to do so.

The sad thing is, nobody can really stop him.

Pat Mitsch is a senior staff writer for The Pitt News. E-mail him at prm17@pitt.edu.