THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2009
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Panthers defeat Mountaineers,go 15-0 at home
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pittsburgh's DeJuan Blair, right, grabs a rebound in front of West Virginia's Wellington Smith in the second half in Pittsburgh on Monday. The No. 4 Panthers ripped the top rival Mountaineers 70-59 over four trouble for Blair for most of the game.
After scoring more than 90 points in each of the past three games, Pitt wins 70-59
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PITTSBURGH — Sam Young scored 20 points as No. 4 Pittsburgh seized the lead with a
late first-half run and went on to beat rival West Virginia 70-59 on Monday night.
Young followed up a 22- point game in Pitts' 79- 67 win at West Virginia two weeks ago, making seven of 12 shots and adding seven rebounds, nine Fields had 13
Alex Ruoff scored 17 points and Devin Ebanks 16, but West Virginia (16-8, 5-6) lost its sixth in seven games against ranked Big East teams even though Pitt's Deluan Blair was in foul trouble most of the game.
points and seven assists to help the Panthers (22-2, 9-2 in Big East) win their fourth in a row and sixth in seven games.
Especially not with Blair sitting out most of the first half after drawing his second foul with 15:14 remaining in the half. The
sive average.
Pittsburgh, known for its defense and not its offense, had scored 90 points or more in succession against DePaul, Robert Morris and Notre Dame. That wasn't going to happen against West Virginia, which came in leading the Big East with a 61 points per game defen-
Alex Ruoff scored 17 points and Devin Ebanks 16, but West Virginia lost its sixth in seven games against ranked Big East teams.
6-foot-7 Blair was coming off a 32-point, 14.-re bound game against DePaul on Saturday and was averaging 24.3 points and 14.7 rebounds in his previous three, but didn't
score until getting Pitt's first two baskets of the second half.
Pitt fell behind by as many as four with Blair out, but a Young-led 13-3 run helped the Panthers open a 29-22 lead with 1:12 remaining before halftime.
West Virginia had foul problems of its own - Ruoff.
Blair finished with 8 points and 9 rebounds in 16 minutes.
The Panthers pushed their lead to 15 points not long after that with a 10-1 run that occurred even as Blair left after drawing a technical foul for protesting an offensive foul call with Pitt up 52-40.
with 7:18 remaining.
Ruoff made one of the two free throws but West Virginia couldn't score on the ensuing possession after the technical and Fields came back with a left-handed layup and two free throws the next two times Pitt had the ball.
The Mountaineers didn't have enough offense to catch up in losing their third in four games, not with Blair repeatedly limiting them to one shot per possession when he was in the game. The Mountaineers shot 40.4 percent.
The Panthers pushed their lead to 15 points with a 10-1 run that occurred as Blair drew a technical foul for protesting a call with Pitt up by 12.
who scored 24 points against Providence on Saturday, drew his fourth foul near the midpoint of the second half and fouled out
21-of-52, and were outrebounded 39-23.
West Virginia is 2-7 overall against Top 25 opponents and has lost four in a row at Pittsburgh.
Pitt, 15-0 at home this season.
swept the basketball version of the Backyard Brawl for the second time in three seasons despite making only 4 of 13 three-pointers.
RECRUITING
COLLEGE BASKETBALL Connecticut stays on top for two weeks in a row
Coach-player contact tricky
Oklahoma and North Carolina remained second and third, and that's where the changes began after a week that saw 14 ranked teams lose at least one game.
After a month of a new No. 1 every week, Connecticut is on top of the poll for a second straight week.
Pittsburgh and Louisville
were fourth and fifth, followed by Duke, Wake Forest, Memphis, Michigan State and Marquette.
The Huskies (22-1) beat Louisville and Michigan last week to stay on top of the Associated Press' college basketball poll
Top 25 on Monday. They moved to the top last week, the fourth No.1 in as many weeks following Pittsburgh, Wake Forest and Duke.
Kansas was No. 16, jumping up five spots from last week.
Missouri and Ohio State made returns to the poll, while the Florida State Seminoles entered it for the first time since 1998.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ketball. Then after the game a dangerous thing happens: The player and his parents walk up and try to have a conversation.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A coach travels hundreds of miles to watch a high school student play bas-
Associated Press
What's a coach to do?
According to the NCAA, the coach must immediately end the encounter if it's during noncontact periods, and most Big 12 coaches say it's one that's nearly impossible to follow.
"It happens a lot," said Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel. "The parents may wave at you and say hello. The kid may walk by and speak and say hello. You don't engage in conversation or you very politely say, 'Hey, look, we're not allowed to talk to you right now.' Then you move on."
During Monday's Big 12 conference call, most coaches said encounters such as that involving Kansas coach Bill Self and one of the nation's top high school prospects at a recent tournament in southwest Missouri are common.
"I think you'd shut all the schools down in the country if you didn't allow that," said Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon. "I've seen a lot of it happen, and I've done it a few times."
The encounters can be so innocent, the coach doesn't even know it's happening, said Baylor's Scott Drew.
"You can be coming out of a restroom after a game and a parent or somebody could be coming in and say, 'Hey, thanks for coming,' said Drew. "And you say thanks and not even know if it was the parent. Or after the game's over and you're talking to the coach and the kid walked by and said, 'Hey, coach.'"
Self has admitted he shook hands with prospect John Wall, a 6-foot-4 guard from Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, N.C., and the pair briefly spoke after a tournament last month. Self has said Wall, who is rated the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2009 by Rivals, com, approached him while he was talking to coaches.
Kansas said it would look into the matter. But most of Self's conference rivals did not seem to think a major infraction had been made.
"I think that was, in my opinion, blown a little bit out of proportion," Capel said Monday. "As a coach, you're kind of caught in between a fine line because you don't want to be rude, if you're rude, then maybe you don't get that kid. But you hope the family understands and the kid understands."
Capel said many parents may not understand the rule or think it's too silly to obey.
"A mother may come over, and maybe you've developed a pretty good rapport, a good relationship,
"It makes it a little bit uncomfortable, but at the same time, what are you going to do? Do you run that hug away? Do you just turn and not speak? It's a really fine line for coaches. You go see a game, you stay after to speak to the coach because you want to have a good relationship with the coach and if you stay and speak with the coach then you may happen to speak to a kid."
and say, 'I know the rules, but I'm still going to hug you. That's how I was raised.'
Texas coach Rick Barnes said there have been times when he thought someone might have felt offended because he had declined to have a conversation.
“Sometimes you say, 'Hey, look, I can't talk to you,' and they say, ‘Oh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal with us.’ But you've got to say, 'Well, I can't do that,' Barnes said. “And some people just don't understand it. But what happened with Bill, that's happened with everybody that's been out there recruiting.”