Former WVU coach Beilein to enter Hall of Fame

Beilein joins a group of players including Connecticut’s Richard “Rip” Hamilton; Furman’s Frank Selvy, who once scored 100 points in a game; Jimmy Walker of Providence; North Carolina’s Larry Miller; coaches Lon Kruger and Jerry Krause and legends Jim Calhoun of Connecticut and Roy Williams of North Carolina and Kansas.

Calhoun and Williams were part of the 2006 founding class and will be honored this year as they both are now retired.

To the nation, and perhaps Beilein himself, his shining moments were when he led Michigan to two National Championship games, losing to Louisville in 2013 — a title later taken from the Cardinals for NCAA violations — and to Villanova in 2018.

But in West Virginia, Beilein will always be remembered as the man who rebuilt the Mountaineer program from its lowest point.

In 2002, which would become Gale Catlett’s final season as head coach after 24 seasons and 439 wins at his alma mater, expectations were high for the Mountaineers. They had recruited one of the highest-profile recruits ever in Jonathan Hargett of Richmond, but the team fell completely apart.

The Mountaineers went 8-20 for the season and 1-15 in Big East play, the one win coming in a game Catlett missed due to illness.

Rumors of potential violations involving Hargett ran rampant as Catlett resigned, sending athletic director Ed Pastilong on a search for his replacement. He eventually lady on a Bobby Knight assistant at Indiana, Dan Dakich, who took the job and was introduced before a crowd of students, fans and media with cheerleaders and the pep band present in the Coliseum.

However, eight days later the bottom fell out when Dakich suddenly resigned, claiming that as he looked into the program, he discovered potential improprieties.

Dakich told sportswriter Pete Thamel in 2012 that Hargett told him he had been promised $20,000 a year for three years and had not been paid the full amount. Dakich also said Hargett told him he was tired of people “owning” him.

Hargett would later serve time in prison for drug possession with intent to sell.

WVU denied any wrongdoing, and Dakich claimed that he had a run-in with then-WVU President David Hardesty before walking out on the job.

West Virginia’s basketball program was in deep water now as Pastilong went off in search of a coach. He had no wiggle room.

Pastilong had to make the right choice this time to find not only a coach who could win at WVU but who would be above reproach.

That was when he received a phone call from a friend in Wheeling who suggested he interview Beilein.

They contacted the administration at Richmond, where he was serving as head coach, and got permission to speak with him.

Beilein impressed him in the interview.

“Obviously, he was impressive and lived up to it,” Pastilong said Thursday upon hearing of Beilein’s induction into the Hall of Fame. “He was easy to have a discussion with and it became clear he knew basketball and, thirdly, it was a good time for him and good time for us. When you hire someone, I think it’s important that they have themselves ready for the job.”

Beilein had spent a lifetime climbing the basketball ladder, learning the lessons he would put to use at WVU.

Beilein, from upstate New York, started his coaching career at Newfane High after graduating from what was then Wheeling College and today is Wheeling Jesuit, then moved on to Erie Community College and Nazareth College in Richmond before moving on to Le Moyne in 1983, where he went 163-94 in eight years.

In 1992 he moved up to Canisius before Richmond took him on, setting the stage for him to be offered and take the West Virginia job.

Through all of that, he never served as an assistant coach.

Beilein brought his precise style of basketball to Morgantown, built around the 3-point shot, as he put the program back on its feet during his five seasons as coach.

His first team went 14-15. He had inherited a big, gangly freshman from Martinsburg named Kevin Pittsnogle, who decided to stay with the program, and brought in the likes of Johannes Herber, J.D. Collins and his son, Patrick Beilein.

The next year, there was slight improvement to 17-14 as he added shot blocker D’Or Fischer and freshman Frank Young to the mix.

By the third year, though, he had a legitimate contender that would go 24-11 with Mike Gansey and Darris Nichols added to the mix.

In 2007 he would have his best record at 27-9, a team to which he had added a great amount of young talent in Da’Sean Butler, Joe Alexander, Alex Ruoff, Joe Mazzulla and Wellington Smith. It was a team that won the NIT championship and made up the heart of Bob Huggins’ early teams, setting the path for the NCAA Final Four team of 2010.

Beilein jumped to Michigan in 2008 and wound up with two Final Four teams in 12 years, then left to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Beilein’s career record at Canisius, Richmond, West Virginia and Michigan was 571-325 for a .637 winning percentage.