Until John Beilein had watched the success the Sacramento Kings and New Jersey Nets had with the Princeton offense, college basketball's best offensive mind confesses that he considered the possibility that his own system could work in the NBA. So, here was West Virginia's coach on his cell phone Thursday night, indulging a caller's premise that the pros ought to be dying to recruit him out of the Big East.
Maybe it would work, the coach was saying, but he was sure of this: Our conversation was destined to curse his Mountaineers with 10 straight losses.
Still, Beilein wasn't campaigning for an NBA offer, just answering a question.
"Well, the better the athlete, the higher the basketball IQ, the easier it would be to run our stuff," Beilein said. "The better the players, the better the system works."