By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — The recruits keep rolling in for Bob Huggins and his West Virginia University Mountaineer program, and the latest verbals they received should take care of replacing Joe Ruoff upon his departure and adding a big man for 2009 and beyond.
Dalton Pepper, a 6-5 shooting guard who is a two-time All-State player from Pennsbury, N.J., is one. He chose WVU over Villanova, Temple, Wake Forest and Miami, Fla., giving a verbal to the Mountaineers over the weekend, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
Joining Pepper is 6-8 forward Dan Jennings, who played an important role for traditional power Oak Hill this year after having starred at Staten Island, N.Y.’s, Bishop Loughlin. Jennings gave his verbal over the weekend, according to Realscout.com, a recruiting Web site.
Many publications list the 6-5 shooting guard among the nation’s top 100 players in the class of 2009 after averaging 22.8 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.8 steals and shooting better than 50 percent from the field in helping Pennsbury advance to the state Quad-A semifinals last year.
“That’s the place that I wanted to be, and it was the place that my parents wanted it to be as well,” Pepper told the newspaper.
Actually, it was John Beilein who began recruiting Pepper when he was coaching the Mountaineers. But when he left for Michigan, it was assumed the Mountaineers would lose interest.
Instead, Huggins went after him hard with the help of assistant Billy Hahn, who was head coach at LaSalle in the Philadelphia for a couple of years. Hahn attended a number of Pepper’s games down the stretch, and Huggins and Hahn both attended Pepper’s District 1 semifinal game against Norristown.
While some question whether Pepper can play Huggins’ hard-nosed, aggressive style of play, his high school coach, Frank Sciolla, told the newspaper it would not present a problem.
“I know that there are some people who wondered if Dalton’s style of play wouldn’t fit the style of Coach Huggins, but he’s an aggressive player who loves the hard-nosed, aggressive style that they play,” Sciolla said.
Jennings has been the star player for the New York Gauchos, a top AAU team, for the last two years.
This is what ESPN.com had to say about Jennings:
“This lefty is an undersized center who has a great basketball body — long and strong. Jennings runs well in transition and is an above-the-rim finisher who benefits from drop off passes from guard penetration. In the post he is physical around the basket where he executes powerful post moves that include the drop step, and he can score with the jump hook with either hand. He does an excellent job sealing his man for position and takes advantage of any angles to the rim. His shooting range extends to about 15 feet. Although he is only 6-8, he knows he is a center and seems to have accepted it. He's a good rebounder on both ends and has good foot quickness that allows him to be an excellent post defender, but he could struggle against a much taller center. Jennings plays hard and is an active and live body — a high-major player.”
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
