MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — As part of a three-year deal, the West Virginia men’s basketball team will return Saturday’s 4 p.m. game against a young and developing Youngstown State to downtown Youngstown next season.
The Penguins will return to play again at the WVU Coliseum, in 2020.
“One of the hardest things I’ve found at this level is scheduling,” Youngstown State coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “We’re one of those teams that are being bought [one-year game contracts], so to have West Virginia come back to our place is a big deal for us.”
It is a deal built from a relationship between West Virginia coach Bob Huggins and Calhoun that stretches back further than Calhoun’s days as the Mountaineers’ former Basketball Director of Operations and assistant coach from 2007-2012.
It is a deal, Huggins and Calhoun said, that began because of Mike Duncan, who was in charge of the Cleveland Basketball Club — now the Ohio Basketball Club — AAU team in 2002.
As a 20-year old still playing college ball for Rollie Massimino at Cleveland State, it was on the AAU summer circuit for CBC where Calhoun’s coaching days began.
“When he was a 20-year-old guy coaching an AAU team, generally speaking they had more discipline than other AAU teams had,” Huggins said. “They ran good stuff. He didn’t really pay attention that he was only 20-years old.”
Duncan, a close friend of Huggins, eventually made an introduction between the two.
“Jerrod decided he didn’t have a future as a player and he wanted to be a coach,” Huggins continued. “He transferred to Cincinnati and was a student assistant for me. Then we got him the Walsh assistant job and he was at Walsh a couple of years. When I came back here [to West Virginia], he wanted to come, so I brought him back here.”
Calhoun’s introduction to West Virginia basketball?
“Huggs had me working on menus for the team, taking care of tickets; I was basically just learning the whole system,” Calhoun said. “That’s when I first knew that I wanted to get into coaching. When I saw it all working and coming together, I knew this is what I wanted to do with my life and I’ll be forever grateful to Huggs for helping me get started.”
Calhoun’s days as a West Virginia assistant grew into becoming a head coach for the first time, taking over at Fairmont State, in 2012. In his fifth season, Calhoun guided the Falcons to the 2017 Division II national championship game.
“He works,” Huggins said. “Jerrod has done a great job of networking. He’s done a terrific job of getting people on his team. What he did in Fairmont is unbelievable. He went in there and raised money for facilities. He raised scholarship money and recruiting money. He’s not afraid to work and he’s obviously very good with people.”
“It was a lot of hard work in Fairmont,” Calhoun added. “People think that kind of stuff just sort of happens overnight, but it doesn’t work like that. You have to do so much work when people aren’t looking. That’s kind of how you build success.”
Calhoun knows he is still very much in the early stages of trying to find success with the Penguins (3-5).
He was 8-24 as a rookie head coach in Division I. A year later, he is depending on seven freshmen — including former University High standout Geoff Hamperian, who redshirted last season — three Division I transfers and two recruits who were in junior college this time last year.
Another one of his redshirt freshmen: 6-foot-11 John Sally Jr.
“No relation,” to the former Detroit Pistons star, Calhoun said. “That’s one of the first questions I get all the time.
“We’re still trying to develop as a program. My first year, we had to go with five money games to help make some ends meet. We’re still very early in the process here, but we do have some good things to build on. We were fourth in attendance in our league, so we have the support of our community and that continues to grow. We haven’t drawn a lot of breaks yet, but I really believe as long as we don’t waste any days here, something good will happen.”
Notes
♦ Huggins said for the exception of the suspended Derek Culver, the Mountaineers (4-2) had everyone available for practice for a second straight day Friday.
♦ Calhoun’s Director of Basketball Operations, Mark Richmond, was a student assistant at West Virginia under Huggins. The West Virginia coach isn’t worried about Youngstown State knowing the Mountaineers’ plays.
“We’re on TV more than Homer Simpson,” Huggins said. “It’s not hard to get video of us. Everybody we play knows what we’re going to do. It’s not a matter of them knowing; it’s a matter of them trying to stop it.”
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