*** THIS IS THE THIRD in a series of 10 local sports stories The Dominion Post believes would make a good sports documentary. They will be posted online every Saturday and Tuesday through June 30.
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — In 21 years as WVU’s athletic director, Ed Pastilong made his share of tough phone calls.
One of his most difficult he still remembers vividly, coming in April 2007.
On the other end of the line was Kansas State athletic director Tim Weiser, who Pastilong had met a number of times during NCAA conventions.
“One of the really good guys in the business,” Pastilong says 13 years later. “He couldn’t have been more understanding of the situation. He was a real gentleman, but I’ll tell you, that was an extremely difficult call to make.
“He picks up the line and immediately said, ‘I knew you were going to call.’ I’ll never forget that.”
The rest of the story you pretty much know.
Pastilong was calling Weiser to request permission to contact Bob Huggins to become the next WVU men’s basketball coach.
A week earlier, after having just guided the Mountaineers to the 2007 NIT championship, John Belien was off to coach at Michigan.
Huggins was hired at WVU on April 6, 2007, and three years later had the Mountaineers playing in the Final Four.
“The reason that call was so hard to make was because Bob had just got to Kansas State,” Pastilong said. “He had been there for only one year and it felt like we were stealing him away.”
And this is where we throw a boulder into the stream and alter the timeline with one simple hypothetical question: What if Pastilong never had to make that call in 2007?
We’ll take it one step further: Say it was Michigan, and not WVU, that went on to win the NIT that season and decided to keep Tommy Amaker as its head coach.
“That would have definitely made things interesting,” Pastilong said. “I’m interested in seeing where you go with this.”
Setting it all up
Prior to Amaker being let go at Michigan on March 17, there was very little that tied Michigan, WVU and Kansas State together other than all three schools played in that 2007 NIT.
That fact meant something very differently for all three programs.
For the Mountaineers, it was a mixture of disappointment and excitement.
In the two previous seasons, Beilein guided a group of players headed by the likes of Kevin Pittsnogle, J.D. Collins, Mike Gansey, Patrick Beilein and Joe Herber to deep NCAA tournament runs.
When those five seniors graduated, Beilein took a group of holdovers named Alex Ruoff, Rob Summers, Joe Alexander, Frank Young and Darris Nichols and sprinkled in a freshman named Da’Sean Butler and they carried the Mountaineers to 22 victories by the end of the Big East tournament.
That included a win against No. 2 UCLA inside the WVU Coliseum, but a subpar strength of schedule that season was the likely culprit behind the Mountaineers getting overlooked by the NCAA tournament.
“Still, it also validated the kind of coach we had in John,” Pastilong said. “Going into that season, I don’t really think anyone was expecting us to compete for a spot in the NCAA tournament, because we had lost all of our starters from the year before.”
For Michigan, it was another sign of not moving forward.
Amaker had taken over the Wolverines in 2001, fresh off the heels of the Ed Martin pay-for-play scandal that led to an ugly NCAA investigation.
Three years later, Michigan won the NIT. In 2006, the Wolverines lost to South Carolina in the NIT finals, but by 2007, the Wolverines’ fan base had become frustrated with no NCAA appearances in Amaker’s six seasons.
For Kansas State, that slot in the NIT was a hopeful sign of things to come.
In Huggins’ lone season at K-State, he was able to bring in five-star recruit Bill Walker and had already signed the nation’s top recruit in Michael Beasley for the 2007-08 season.
Kansas State’s appearance in the 2007 NIT was the first time the Wildcats had played in any postseason tournament since 1999.
“We definitely had things going in the right direction,” said Erik Martin, an assistant under Huggins at K-State and for 13 seasons at WVU. “Huggs really made an impact there right away. I don’t want to say he was worshiped, but whatever comes right under worshiped, that’s how he was viewed.”
Let’s change history
Changing the variables in this equation wipes out some memorable and one not-so-memorable moment in WVU hoops history.
By inserting Michigan as the 2007 NIT champions, it means Nichols does not hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer in the semifinals against Mississippi State and it means Young does not play through early foul trouble and score 24 points in the finals against Clemson.
On a positive note, it also means WVU players are not handed championship T-shirts that night in Madison Square Garden with the “Virginia” in West Virginia misspelled.
“I still have mine,” Nichols told The Dominion Post in 2018. “It’s sitting in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. I pull it out every now and then and have a good laugh.”
But, it may have also given then-Michigan athletic director Bill Martin enough reason to hold on to Amaker, who was under contract with the Wolverines for another four years.
If Michigan wasn’t hiring, Beilein may have stayed at WVU for at least another season, which sets up our ultimate final two questions.
The final act
Pastilong admits he began hearing the Beilein-to-Michigan rumors almost immediately after Amaker was let go.
He had gone through the same situation in 2006, when it was strongly rumored that North Carolina State had wanted to hire Beilein, but was not as interested in paying Beilein’s buyout in his WVU contract.
Thirteen years later, Pastilong said his gut feeling all along was Beilein was destined to leave WVU for another job at some point.
If it wasn’t Michigan, Pastilong said, it likely would have been another school the following year.
“We certainly knew John’s track record at not staying at one school for very long,” Pastilong said. “We were attentive of that when we first hired him, so it was always in the back of my mind that he was going to leave at some time.
“I will say this: John came in and delivered at our school and gave us many memorable seasons. If he had wanted to stay, we would have done everything we could to keep him.”
The other question comes in just how available Huggins would have been to WVU if he had coached a second season at Kansas State?
“Honestly, I don’t believe that would have stopped him at all,” Martin said. “That’s what I believe. Huggs may say something different, but he walked away from having the No. 1 incoming recruiting class in the nation at K-State to coach at West Virginia.
“Even if he had coached at K-State for three or four years, I believe he would have still gone to WVU when they called. That’s how much it meant to him to go back home.”
In a sort of twist, Pastilong said he would have felt much better making that call to Weiser if Huggins had been at Kansas State for a few years rather than just one.
“It would have been so much easier, because I wouldn’t have felt like we were trying to rip their coach away from them after he just got there,” he said. “It was a difficult moment for everyone involved. I really can’t thank the people at Kansas State enough, because they were truly understanding and professional about the whole situation.
“I do feel Bobby would have still come home even if it was a year later. When I first talked to him (in 2007), I asked him if he was ready to come home and he immediately said ‘yes.’ I think it was always in his heart that he would coach at West Virginia one day.”
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TIED TO HISTORY
JOHN BEILEIN (left) won 278 games in 12 seasons at Michigan and he guided the Wolverines to the Final Four in 2013 and 2018. Michigan finished as the national runner-up both times. He was hired to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019, but resigned after 54 games. His 12 seasons at Michigan marks the longest Beilein stayed at any of the six schools he coached in college.
“Looking back on it now, it really worked out pretty well for everyone,” Ed Pastilong said. “John did great things at Michigan and Bobby led us to the Final Four. It was sort of a win-win for everyone.”
FRANK MARTIN was an assistant coach at Kansas State under Bob Huggins and he took over as head coach. He guided the Wildcats to four NCAA tournaments in his five seasons there. He is now the head coach at South Carolina, where he took the Gamecocks to the 2017 Final Four.
“Frank gave me the option at staying at K-State,” Erik Martin said. “He said he understood either way I went, but I always felt it was best for me to follow Huggs to West Virginia.”
TOMMY AMAKER was hired at Harvard after being let go by Michigan. He has guided the Crimson to seven Ivy League championships and four NCAA tournaments. In his first season, Amaker inherited future NBA player Jeremy Lin and coached him for three seasons.
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