Coaches with WVU ties land new jobs
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MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia Mountaineers making news all over, so let's take a look at the bulletin board:
Darian DeVries now has his assistant coach to go with his first player, son Tucker, who transferred in from Drake, and if you get the idea that there might be a Drake flavor to the mix in Morgantown, you probably will be right.
Nick Norton, who spent the last three years on DeVries staff as it won two Missouri Valley Conference championships while stringing together an 80-26 record, joins the staff in the dual role of assistant coach/director of player personnel.
"Nick is a hard worker who brings great enthusiasm and tremendous energy to our basketball program," DeVries said in the school's release. "He always has a great rapport with our players and has a strong basketball IQ. Nick fits our basketball staff and our program extremely well."
The basketball IQ comes in part because his father, Randy, is the head women's coach at UAB.
Norton began his playing career at UAB, making All-Conference third team as a sophomore while leading the league in assist-to-turnover margin and averaging 8.9 points a game before transferring to Drake in 2018 when he averaged 14.0 points, 5.9 assists and 4.1 rebounds a game before his career ended with an injury. Highlight was a 17-assist game against North Dakota State. He also scored 31 points against San Diego State and put up the second triple double in the school's history with 18 points, those 17 assists and 13 rebounds in the ND State win.
More coaching news:
Rob Summers' climb up the coaching ladder jumped a couple of rungs as the one-time WVU center joined Dennis Gates in trying to revive the University of Missouri's dismal program that wound up the season losing 19 consecutive games and going winless in the SEC.
The 7-foot Summers joined the Mountaineers for the 2006 and 2007 seasons under John Beilein, playing in 69 games and averaging 2.9 points and rebounds a game off the bench. He transferred in after two years at Penn State.
He will work with the big men for Gates, with whom he coached at Cleveland State before spending the last couple of years as an associate head coach at Miami of Ohio.
"Rob Summers has always been a very detailed student of the game," Beilein said in the Missouri release. "He was as a player when I coached him at West Virginia and now, for many years, I have watched him continue that as a coach. His passion and talent for coaching basketball is outstanding."
And even more on the coaching front, this on Jerrod Calhoun, the former Bob Huggins assistant who began his head coaching career from 2012 to 2017 at Fairmont State. This past week he was named head coach at Utah State, following a couple of 20-win seasons running the Youngstown state program.
And Wesley Brooks, who got his start as a graduate assistant and director of basketball operations at WVU, has been named the women's head coach at Utah State. He has bounced around since at Ohio State, Michigan, Utah, Texas Southern and Robert Morris.
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Former WVU left-handed pitcher Randy Wolf, originally a fourth-round draft pick of the San Diego Padres in the 2021 draft before being traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates last year at the trade deadline, returns to the Padres in a trade from the Pirates for minor league infielder Kervin Pichardo.
Described quite tongue-in-cheek as a "lupine lefty" by the Padres public relations department in the release (lupine, as an adjective, meaning "wolfish") Wolf will go to Triple-A El Paso.
He had lost his shine with the Pirates as top prospects Paul Skenes and Jared Jones jumped past him. He had made 8 starts at Double-A for the Pirates with a 4.25 ERA, which was a step back from what he had done with the Padres, including one emergency big league start.
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In case you missed it, point guard Kerr Kriisa has joined guard Seth Wilson in the transfer portal as the WVU basketball program moves forward after last year's lost season.
Former WVU forward Jesse Edwards, who is trying to prove himself recovered from a broken wrist last season, will play for the West team in the Reese's Division I College All-Star game on Friday afternoon in Phoenix as part of Freese's Final Four Friday. The game will be carried on the CBS Sports Network.
Rosters have been announced for the 2024 NABC - Reese's Division I College All-Star Game, featuring top senior talent from across NCAA Division I.
The All-Star game will take place on Friday, April 5 at 3:30 p.m. MST at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix as part of Reese's Final Four Friday. The game will be broadcast live on CBS Sports Network.
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If you believe in planning ahead, this is for you.
DeVries will make his official debut as WVU's head men's basketball coach against Robert Morris in the 2024-25 season opener on Monday, Nov. 4 at the Coliseum.