PARKERSBURG - If Justin Johnson thought growing up in Parkersburg was a good reason to pay attention to WVU football, he was given one more in the past few years when his older brother, Josh Jenkins, joined the team as an offensive guard.

Now the Parkersburg High senior has yet another. Last week, he received an official scholarship offer from the Mountaineers to go along with previous offers he has from Marshall and Ohio University.

IF THE NCAA decides to go to a 96-team men's basketball tournament, I'd miss the madness associated with March.

A team would have to be in a figurative coma in order to miss the field, and end-of-the-regular-season games would be reduced to little more than exhibitions. What drama, for instance, would there be to see if West Virginia gets a No. 2 or 5 seed? Would it matter an iota whether the Mountaineers play the No. 23 or No. 20 seed?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The NCAA accused the University of Michigan of failing to comply with practice time rules under Coach Rich Rodriguez, who admitted making "mistakes'' but will be back for a third try at bringing college football's winningest program back into the national title hunt.

Incoming UM Athletic Director David Brandon disclosed the NCAA conclusions today, but said there were no surprises in the report. He expressed full support for his coach, who is 8-16 in two disappointing seasons.

West Virginia basketball legend Jerry West was one of four players named Wednesday to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

West joins Duke's Christian Laettner, UCLA's Sidney Wicks and North Carolina State's David Thompson in the Hall's Class of 2010.

MORGANTOWN - Give Bob Huggins an opening to talk about Da'Sean Butler and what he means to West Virginia's eighth-ranked basketball team and he'll pounce on it.

The direction Huggins will take, though, is always a mystery.

He might go the versatility route and wonder aloud how many players could seamlessly morph from a shooting guard to a small forward to a point guard and then to an inside banger - quite often not simply in the same game, but in one possession.

With apologies to Paul Harvey, author Roland Lazenby offers a new take in his book "Jerry West; The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon.''

It's the West of the story.

MORGANTOWN - The last thing Bob Huggins wants to do right now is dwell on free-throw shooting.

Practice those freebies? Sure. But obsess about it? Fixate on it?

No way.

PITTSBURGH - For the second time in three seasons, West Virginia lost a game at Pitt that it appeared to have all wrapped up. This one took a lot longer than the last one, though.

After blowing a five-point lead in the final 34 seconds of regulation, the Mountaineers fell 98-95 to Pitt in three overtimes Friday night. The game lasted more than three hours and stretched across two days.